St. Cloud Cathedral tops Card boys 4-2 in non-league soccer

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On their first road trip of the season, the Cardinal boys’ soccer team made their first road trip of the season, falling to St. Cloud Cathedral 4-2 Saturday morning.

The Crusaders scored in just the third minute of the game, and controlled the pace of play for the next seven minutes.

Alexandria’s Kirby Nelson sent a nice through ball to Jordan Zemba, who buried the ball in the net to tie the game at 1-1 in the 10th minute of action, but Cathedral responded, scoring in the 26th minute with a good passing play.

Alexandria was outshot 20-5 in the first half.

“I felt with the wind in the second half, we would be fine,” said Cardinal coach Wes Thompson, whose team came out in the second half with a couple of quick shots on net, but were unable to score. “Then Cathedral really started to take over the game.”

Despite having the wind at their backs, Alexandria struggled to get the ball out of their own end of the field.

“Cathedral beat the Cards to all the loose balls and won most of the 50/50 balls,” said Thompson. “The Crusaders used quick, accurate passes to really control the temp of the game.”

The Crusaders scored in the 74th minute of play and again less than a minute later for a 4-1 lead with a little more than five minutes remaining.

With the Cards pressing hard, Dustin Lee was taken down in the box to earn a penalty kick with a minute remaining on the clock. Sam Olson took the penalty kick and beat the keeper with a shot to make the final score 4-2.

Alexandria was outshot in the game 17-5 in the second half, and the Crusaders had a total of 37 shots on goal to just 10 for the Cardinals.

Steve Trandahl made 28 saves in goal for the Redbirds, with St. Cloud Cathedral’s Peter Coborn needing just eight. 

Alexandria will be on the road tomorrow, Thursday, heading to Fergus Falls.

Tags: sports, alexandria, boys, soccer, st, cloud, cathedral