IR soccer holds on to defeat Cape 2-1
The Indian River soccer team scored twice early and held off a late surge by Cape to take a 2-1 victory in the annual rivalry of Sussex soccer powers.
The Indians started the scoring at the four-minute mark, when senior forward Jordan Illian hit the twine unassisted. Connor Bird tallied the second goal from Illian at the 16-minute mark.
The game went back and forth until the 71st minute, when Niko Panyko powered a shot out of a crowd to beat IR keeper Kai Kelley. The assist was credited to Donovan Sandoval.
The Vikings outshot the Indians 9-7, and each team had three corners.
Kelley stopped eight scoring attempts, while Dru Schneider made five saves for the Vikings.
“The boys played hard,” said Cape head coach Patrick Kilby. “It was super disappointing to lose such a close match to such a big rival. Our plan is to win the Henlopen North and we are hopeful to see them again in the conference championship. However, we have three tough conference matches ahead of us that we need to win first in Caesar Rodney, Dover and Polytech.”
“Traditionally, the IR versus Cape soccer game is always a big game and emotional,” said first-year IR head coach Brandt Mais. “Of course, [former IR coach] Steve Kilby moving to Cape [as an assistant] amplified the rivalry. The IR players, families and coaches have so much respect for the legacy Kilby built for IR soccer over the past 20 years. Kilby coached all our boys not only at the high school, but also at the club level. They were so excited to see him demonstrating how impactful Kilby is as coach.”
This particular match felt larger due to both teams having great seasons – IR undefeated and Cape with only one loss entering the game.
“We wanted to show up to have good performance and that's exactly what IR did,” Mais said. “We know Cape is always willing to battle and will be well coached. To their credit, Cape didn't give up, scored late in the game, and put a lot of pressure on us. Cape is also the first team to score on IR this season, which shows their class.”
