end season, playoffs next

Junior midfielder Jhamaal Sykes controls the ball as Bigfork's Alex Buenz looks on Oct. 10. Loggers triumph 4-0.

Junior defender Bryant Reis passes to Cody Wood in second half vs. Bigfork Oct. 10. Christian Bencomo, right.

by Bob Henline Western News
| October 13, 2015 8:08 AM

Junior defender Bryant Reis passes to Cody Wood in second half vs. Bigfork Oct. 10. Christian Bencomo, right.

Zander Petersen led the Libby Loggers soccer team to a shutout victory in their last match of the regular season, blanking Bigfork 4-0 to put the cap on Libby’s Homecoming week.

Cody Wood opened the scoring against the visiting Vikings in the sixth minute, with an assist from Petersen. He then added an unassisted goal just one minute later.

In the second half Petersen added two goals to his earlier assist, one in the 64th minute assisted by Colin Maloney and one in the 66th minute, assisted by Andrew Freese.

Libby’s defense held strong, limited the Vikings to just two shots on goal for the afternoon. One was repelled by Giovanni Cano and one by Raffael Webber. The Loggers were also active on the offense, firing 16 shots at the Bigfork’s goal tender, Ben Russell. He managed to save 12 of those shots in the losing effort.

“This was a good game for our team at the end of the regular season,” said Libby coach Mark Petersen. “Each team had something to play for today in this match. Bigfork was looking to close their season with a victory and we were using this match to prepare for our post-season conference playoff game against Columbia Falls Tuesday. Our game plan was to score early and often so the starters could rest for playoff game. Starting the match with a quick two-goal lead in the first minutes of the match allowed us to get all of our players into the match early allowing valuable rest to all of the team. As has been the usual affair, the entire team had a big part of this win and all of our successes this season.”

The Loggers finish the regular season at 7-4-1 with an in-conference record of 5-2-1. The playoff match against Columbia Falls is scheduled for 6 p.m. tonight.

Petersen said his team is ready to make their run into the playoffs.

“The objective of our team this season was to improve on last season’s record, make it past the first round of playoffs and most importantly to improve making consecutive passes when in possession of the ball in games,” Petersen said. We’ve done all three so far this season. We’re where we want to be going into the post season. Coach Zeiler’s conditioning and core strengthening training been a big part of our success. Our guys are fit and ready for the playoffs.”