Second half shutout too late for Lady Hounds

PELLA — Carrie Burken kept fighting the tears as she spoke to her Fort Madison girls soccer team for the final time this season.

When she was done, Burken handed each player a card.

“I wrote them all individual notes,” the Bloodhounds’ coach said after Thursday’s 5-0 loss to No. 4 Pella in a Class 2A regional final. “I wanted them to know what I think of them, how much I value each and every one of them for different things. I just think it’s important they hear that. Players hear negative things, they hear critiques. But I wanted them to know how much I enjoyed coaching them.

“I haven’t done it every year, but I wanted to do it for this group in particular.”

Burken smiled, though, at what her team did in the second half after Pella’s first-half fury that set the Hounds back.

The Dutch (14-2) scored all of their goals in the first half. Pella had allowed just five goals all season — four of them in its two losses — and it was going to be difficult for the Bloodhounds (11-6) to rally.

So Burken had a challenge for her team — don’t allow a second-half goal. Pella had 10-goaled three of its last four opponents, and Burken wanted the Bloodhounds to show their defense that had been prevalent all season. 

“I said, ‘We’re not going to get 10-0’d by this team. We’re too good for that,’” Burken said. “That’s just a mindset, there’s a mentality that we don’t want you to score, we’re not going to let you score.”

And so they didn’t. While Pella’s offense controlled the ball for most of the half, the Dutch never did score again.

“To me, that made all of the difference in the world,” Burken said. “To me, it was the difference between going out and knowing that we didn’t play to our potential and knowing that we could go out and shut them down, because we had been a great defensive team all year. I wanted us to take pride in that.

“I don’t think a lot of teams this year held them to that score, and I think that says a lot about us.”

Pella didn’t score for the first 18 minutes of the match before Abby Warner scored to start the Dutch offense. Warner scored again 73 seconds later for a 2-0 lead, then Lauren Mace, Abby Hietbrink and Lizzie Neumann added their lone goals.

“They were good goals,” Burken said. “It wasn’t like they were bad goals, that we had mistakes. They have amazing finishers.”

Fort Madison reached the first regional final in program history after closing the regular season with three consecutive losses. The Bloodhounds defeated Keokuk 6-0 to open the postseason, then won 3-2 (3-0) over Burlington in the regional semifinals, avenging two losses to the Southeast Conference rival Grayhounds in the regular season.

“It was a great season,” Burken said. “Obviously there are things we need to work on. But I’m so proud of this group, and what they’ve accomplished, and their ability to bounce back from things. We’ve had a lot of bad first halves, but we were able to turn it around and play well after halftime, and I think that speaks well not only of their determination, but their respect for each other and their respect for me.

“And I wanted to let them know how much I appreciated what they accomplished this season.”