Cape Central bests Poplar Bluff in tight contest

Most times, games aren’t decided in the first half.

Well, that wasn’t the case for the Cape Central Tigers as they defeated the Poplar Bluff Mules 2-1 on Thursday in the first game of the Notre Dame SoccerFest at Notre Dame Regional High School.

The Tigers were able to create multiple chances early by using their speed to get to the outside.

“That’s always one of our advantages,” Cape Central coach Jared Dobbs said. “We have speed on the outside so we try to utilize that by playing balls in from our midfielders. I think we lost some of that mindset, especially in the second half.”

Max Cairns opened the scoring in the 11th minute as he capitalized on a big opportunity to make it 1-0 Tigers.

“It’s nice to see him get rewarded,” Dobbs said. “But, I also think about the ball that was played beforehand by Josiah Seabaugh. That was more important than the goal because it set Max up.”

After a successful 2022 season that saw the Tigers win 19 games, 2023 features a new challenge.

The Tigers lost seven seniors — Joel Ceja, Erik Ceja-Torres, Sam Cairs, Elijah Peters, Tim Kirby, Kent Elder and Tad Couch from the 2022 team.

Dobbs is hopeful players like Cairns will help fill the big void left by the seniors.

“I hope everyone steps up,” Dobbs said. “We lost some talented players from last year and we lost a lot of leadership. We’ve been talking a lot about who’s going to step up and be that guy that we can count on.”

Just a minute after Cairns’ goal, he would set up teammate Preston Schlichting who delivered to make it 2-0.

“(Preston’s) a good size kid,” Dobbs said. “He’s tough to bring down and he has good technical skills.”

With momentum building for the Tigers, the Mules needed an answer and they got one in the 24th minute as Blaise Rowland found the back of the net to cut the lead in half.

Despite multiple good scoring chances, the Mules would enter halftime trailing 2-1.

As the second half began, it appeared the Mules had the momentum as they had more scoring chances go by the wayside.

Dobbs said he feels his team has some stuff to come clean up when it comes to playing with the lead.

“I thought our decision making wasn’t great in the second half,” Dobbs said. “That’s one of the points we tried to emphasize with today’s game but at the end of the day we got the win and we’re healthy for the most part”.

Poplar Bluff (1-1-1) will resume play in the Notre Dame SoccerFest at 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1, when they play Carbondale (Ill.) at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Cape Central (1-0-1) has a day off before they take on Jackson at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 2 in the Notre Dame SoccerFest.

“We’ll have a light practice tomorrow and hopefully watch some tidbits of film tomorrow and then go into Jackson on Saturday,” Dobbs said.