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MarshfieldAreaSports.com
NEW RICHMOND – The Marshfield boys soccer team came a long way during the 2010 season.
A group of boys mostly inexperienced on the varsity level became a solid defensive team but could never quite get its offense going and that again was the story on Tuesday in the Tigers’ WIAA Division 1 regional semifinal.
New Richmond scored two goals on just three shots, and held Marshfield without a shot on goal, to win 2-0 and advance to Thursday’s regional final at Chippewa Falls.
Colton Simpson scored 6:58 into the game and Patrick Haley added a goal 14 minutes into the second half to provide all the scoring for New Richmond.
The Tigers played without goalie Erik Holm, who had emergency appendectomy surgery on Monday. Freshman Matt Brown stepped in and made one save on the three shot attempts he faced.
“Matt Brown did a good job and we have to give the team a lot of credit,” Marshfield coach Ron Todryk said. “The rest of the team needed to step up and play hard to take the pressure off Matt. To hold a team to three shots, it was a team effort to accomplish that.
“Both of the (scoring) shots were well played balls and there was nothing Matt could really do.”
Marshfield failed to capitalize on some scoring chances early in the game, Todryk said, something that consistently plagued the Tigers this season.
“We had several opportunities in the first 15 minutes of the game and we could have easily been up 3-0,” Todryk said. “The first team that scored was going to have a big advantage.”
Overall, despite an 8-14-2 final record, Todryk was pleased with how Marshfield progressed, and is looking forward to the future of the team.
“There were only three games that we were really outplayed in,” Todryk said. We need to score goals to win. We spent a lot of time in the last half of the season working on scoring. Some games it came around, some it didn’t. The guys have to work on it during the offseason … hitting the ball to the corners. It will come with hard work on their part.”