Dowagiac 2-1 at Chieftain Invitational

Published 8:27 am Monday, August 27, 2018

DOWAGIAC — The Dowagiac soccer team went 2-1 at its own Chieftain Invitational on Saturday.

The Chieftains defeated Bangor 2-1 in a shootout before knocking off Cassopolis 4-1 in the second match of the round robin.

In the final round, Dowagiac was defeated by Fennville 2-0, in a match that was stopped with just under 14 minutes remaining by the officials, due to the escalating physicality of the match.

In the final round, Fennville scored a goal in each half to earn the championship, based on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Fennville, Dowagiac and Bangor all ended the day with 2-1 records.

The Rangers were 1-2, defeating Fennville 1-0 in the first round on a goal by Buster Ward.

For the Chieftains in the opening round, Ben McCrorey scored the lone goal during regulation off the assist by Matt Mosier.

Against Cassopolis, Dowagiac led 3-0 at halftime on goals by Cristian Wilson, Johnny Ruiz and Isaac Saavedra. McCrorey assisted on the Ruiz goal.

In the second half, Wilson scored his second goal of the match.

The Chieftains outshot all three of its opponents by a combined total of 40-7.

“In the first game, we moved the ball really well. We were just unable to finish,” Dowagiac coach Mike Williams said. “They (the shots) were there within inches. Over and over again. It was the best we have looked all year moving the ball against good pressure. We just couldn’t finish.”

Williams was pleased that his team did get some balls into the back of the net against the Rangers.

“In the second game, we moved the ball really well, but this time we finished,” he said. “That looked good. The third game we looked like we just ran out of gas and started making bad decisions feeding the ball, trying to get to the ball with our toes instead of our whole body. We did not spread them wide enough to feed through to finish. Their center-back was tough and he kept pushing us out, which made it really tough.”

Dowagiac goes back to work on Monday when it travels to Coloma for a non-league match against the Comets, scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.

Dowagiac will host Eau Claire on Thursday at 5 p.m.