River Falls boys soccer coach Adam Koger said the fourth-seeded Wildcats weren’t playing for a shootout in Saturday’s Division 2 regional final at No. 1 New Richmond, but they were ready when it got there.
“I asked the captains at halftime, do you want to make a push if we get to a second overtime. And they looked at each other and they said, no, we trust each other in pens (penalty kicks). So I mean, we weren’t playing for PKs, but we weren’t pushing and changing tactically either.”
So after 80 minutes of scoreless regulation, and two 10-minute scoreless overtimes, the game went to a penalty kick shootout to decide the regional champion. Senior goalkeeper Henry Ruhland gave the Cats an early advantage by stopping the first Tiger try, and senior captain Jonas Longsdorf sealed the deal by converting his try in the fifth and final round to give the Wildcats a 4-3 win.
The victory gave the Wildcats their first regional title since 2021 and advanced them to the Division 2 sectional semifinal where they will face No. 3 seed Marshfield Thursday night in Marshfield.
“This is massive,” Ruhland said about the win. “My sophomore year we lost a pen shootout. And then last year, I don’t really want to talk about that one. So I mean, this is really massive.”
After losing to the Tigers twice in the regular season, Koger said the Wildcat emphasis Saturday was to slow down the trio of strong Tiger midfielders Breckin Posel, Evan Sanders and Steven Chapman. Chapman hit the right post with a shot at the end of the first overtime session, while Ruhland and the Wildcat defense, anchored by Longsdorf, held up their end of the plan.
“We limited them to probably, I don’t know, four or five good opportunities,” Koger said. “We mentioned at halftime that we’ve given up more good opportunities to lesser opponents, so that was a win in itself. Henry bails us out when he needs to, we’re lucky to have him and then we just buckled down on defense and that got us to where we were.”
Where they were was in the penalty kick shootout after 120 minutes of scoreless play. And Ruhland gave the Cats a spark when he dove to his right to deny New Richmond’s opening shot by Chapman.
Tustin Todd found the back of the net for River Falls to put the Cats up 1-0 after round one. New Richmond’s Sanders and River Falls’ Wyatt Nelson both converted in the second round, before Ruhland came up with another save, then converted a shot of his own to give the Cats a 3-1 lead with two rounds to go.
Ethan Heiberg converted for the Tigers, and Kailee Selleck’s shot sailed over the net for River Falls to cut the Cats’ advantage to 3-2 after four rounds. New Richmond goalie Zaylin Sweet beat Ruhland on the Tigers’ fifth and final shot, before Longsdorf delivered the clinching goal for the Wildcats.
Ruhland, who stopped two of the Tigers five shots in the shootout, had a straightforward answer when asked if he felt any pressure.
“I’m good at pens,” he said. “We work on that pretty much every practice, so I get good reps. Plus pressure’s for tires. I don’t feel it.”
Officially the game goes in the books as a 0-0 tie, giving the Wildcats a record of 9-10-2 heading into Thursday’s sectional final at Marshfield. Marshfield also advanced in a shootout after playing No. 2 seed Holmen to a 1-1 draw in their regional final. River Falls and Marshfield met once during the regular season, with Marshfield taking a 4-2 victory Sept. 28 in Marshfield.
The Wildcats advanced to last Saturday’s regional final with a 5-0 shutout victory over No. 5 seed Wausau East in a regional semifinal last Tuesday at home.
Boz Berg opened the scoring in the fifth minute of play when he forced a turnover near midfield and beat two Wausau East defenders on a partial breakaway. Todd made it a 2-0 game just before halftime when he picked up a loose ball near the top of the box, broke to his right and turned and delivered a left-footed shot past a screened Wausau East keeper into the lower far corner.
Dominic Hietela fed a through ball to Todd for the Cats’ third goal of the game eight minutes into the second half, and Todd completed his hat trick with a redirect of a pass from Nelson in the 65th minute, before Landon Wilkins scored off a cross from Nelson with under two minutes remaining to make the final 5-0.
The winner of Thursday night’s sectional semifinal between River Falls and Marshfield will advance to play either DeForest, the No. 1 seed on the other side of the bracket, or No. 2 seed Sauk Prairie, in the sectional title game Saturday at 7 p.m. in DeForest.
