Hawks suffer first Bay soccer loss

On a night of plenty of missed opportunities, perhaps the biggest came with 8 minutes and 42 seconds left in Tuesday’s Bay Conference soccer match between Shawano Community High School and Hortonville. Nathaniel Wilson’s shot got by Hortonville goalie Jacob Jennerjohn to tie the match 1-1, but the referee blew a whistle for obstruction before the play. Shawano was awarded a penalty kick, but Zachary Dickmann’s shot landed in the arms of Jennerjohn. Shawano (5-1) went on to lose to Hortonville (5-1) 3-1 as the Polar Bears added goals by Patrick Quale and Phil Proft. “Missed opportunities was basically it tonight,” Shawano coach Bob Croschere said. “We had enough of them in the first half and we didn’t put one in the net.” The penalty kick would have been huge for the Hawks. “Even regardless of the goal, the PK was missed,” Croschere said. “That should have been a goal. It should have been 1-1. That changed the whole mindset of the game.” Shawano got on the scoreboard with 3:56 left to play when Chancellor VanDyck headed in a corner kick by Sawyer Buck. Hortonville broke a 0-0 tie when Marco Delbecchi found the back of the net in the 56th minute. “I just reminded them that they need to win every game from now on to win conference and if they wanted it they could do it,” Hortonville coach Paul Everett said. “They said they wanted it and they proved that they did.” That 1-0 lead prompted Shawano to pull a defender and press the offense, which ended up giving Hortonville extra chances. “They got a sloppy goal there first,” Croschere said. “I pulled some defense to try and balance to get a goal late and that didn’t work.” Shawano goalie Mike Meisner had five saves in the game. Jennerjohn finished with six. Shawano has its final conference game against West De Pere (4-0-1) Tuesday before the Bay Conference tournament starting Oct. 3. “Basically with this, we have a hard road now, instead of the easy path,” Croschere said. “We have West De Pere Tuesday. We need to take care of business and worry about it from there. “I think most of it from here is mental. We were playing fine, we just have to put a ball in the net.”