Photo Courtesy of Hillcrest Academy Yearbook
The marquee boys soccer matchup in the Southeast Iowa Superconference Thursday is in Kalona where the Danville/New London Bears face the Hillcrest Academy Ravens. Hillcrest has turned away all four foes they have faced this year, scoring wins over Burlington, Notre Dame, Sigourney-Keota, Central Lee and WACO by a combined 17-1 score. The Ravens have 77 shots, 45 on goal, 18 corner kicks, 13 assists and 18 saves as a team with a 95% team save percentage. Three different Ravens have multiple goals including Rowan Miller the leader with six, four for Micah Gerber and a pair for Jesse Blossom. Five Ravens have more than one helper, Blossom and Mason Swartzendruber have three each while Gerber, Seth Ours and Lincoln Miller all have two. In goal, Kyle Neuschwander has worked 240 minutes and has stopped all 12 shots he’s seen. A win tonight would also serve as a milestone for long-time Hillcrest head coach Marcus Miller who sits at 299 career victories. This week, the Raven head coach talked with KCII Sports about his team’s terrific start.
Miller said, “It’s a nice group. We have the one senior Mason Swartzendruber and a group of juniors who have suffered through some tough times and now it’s nice to see them be mentally and physically mature and it’s showing on the field. They are guys that are anxious to learn. They have been working a lot in practice on passing, shooting and defensive drills with assistant coaches Ledru (Miller) and Noah (Hughes). They keep a good attitude. Hopefully we can keep building on this!”
Danville/New London is 6-1 this season, outscoring opponents 21-6 in total on their way to the hot start. Their only setback, a 1-0 loss at home to WACO last week. The Bears have 170 shots, 96 on goal, 41 corner kicks, 16 assists and 58 saves with a 91% save percentage. Individual leaders include, Collin Pealer with 12 goals, Talan Whaley with four assists and Aiden Konig who has worked every minute in goal this year with 58 saves and a 91% save percentage.
These two schools have split their last 14 meetings with Danville taking last season’s matchup 2-1 in Kalona where Pealer and Whaley each had a goal and an assist and Konig nine saves for the Bears and Hillcrest got a goal from Gerber and eight saves from Neuschwander.
Action starts tonight at 6:30p.m. at Hillcrest Academy.