Sedalia Smith-Cotton’s Landon Naylor scored the only goal of the game in the 54th minute, handing Republic its second loss of the young season, 1-0, in Republic Thursday.
The Tigers played more than 3/4 of the game without goalkeeper Dalton Ghan, who left with an injury early in the first half. But still, the defense managed to mostly shut down the aggressive Smith-Cotton offense. The Tigers have given up just two goals in three games, with both their losses coming by a score of 1-0.
Coach Kevin Hauck says he’s not especially concerned about the lack of scoring so far, because of the caliber of competition Republic has seen. “We really beefed up this year to make it better, and I think this is just going to allow us to learn more as we move forward,” he says. “I know we’re going to have the opportunities, but we just have to put everything together, and I don’t think we’ve quite done that yet.”
Hauck says he liked what he saw from the midfield Thursday, as well — after a game Saturday where he felt that group did not have its best game.
“Our midfield played really well, and I really liked seeing that, because I thought Saturday we were a little off. I thought they were communicating and moving off the ball a lot better tonight,” he says. “That helps start attacks for us, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to get one in the back of the net.”
Republic had chances to score in both halves. In the first half, both Drew Flippin and Chris Pacheco got good looks that missed the net. In the second half, just two minutes after Smith-Cotton took the lead, Flippin fired a shot that sailed just over the crossbar, banging off the football crossbar just above it.
The Tigers will be back in action next Tuesday at home against Nixa.
