Simley Girls Drop Soccer Heartbreaker to Hill-Murray

In a rugged battle for second place in the Classic Suburban Conference, host Hill-Murray rallied for a dramatic 3-2 double overtime girls soccer win Thursday against the Simley High Spartans.

fell to 5-5-1 overall and 3-3-1 in the conference. Hill-Murray improved to 7-2-1 on the season and 5-1 in conference play, second behind undefeated Mahtomedi.

The Spartans took a 2-1 lead with 21:45 to play on a goal by senior forward Jill Richgels –the 65^th goal of her career.

But the Pioneers came back to tie the game at 2-all with 8:11 left.

Neither team could score the rest of the way or in the first five-minute overtime. Simley had a shot at scoring in the final minute of regulation but couldn’t find the back of the net.

The Titans then kicked in the game-winner with 3:09 to play in the second overtime.

“They played hard,” said Simley head coach Cassie Husemann of the Spartans. “And it’s kind of a disappointing outcome, but it’s an overtime loss and up until last year we typically haven’t won here. We came out and we surprised them again.”

The game was a rough-and-tumble affair that contained lots of pulling, pushing, grabbing, yellow card warnings and one brief fistfight in the second half that caused the ejection of both players involved.

“This team (the Pioneers) is more aggressive.” Husemann said. “They’re like a double-A, a bigger school aggression. But we’re really just not familiar with that and that’s not the style that we play.”

Hill-Murray outshot the Spartans an unofficial 16-5 in the game.

Simley hosts Henry Sibley (2-4-3) Tuesday in a match starting at 5 p.m.