EudoraNews.com

The Eudora High School soccer faced off against one of the best offensive teams that they have played this season, but lost 2-0 Tuesday in the final minutes of a great defensive struggle against Louisburg Wildcats.

Much like the chilly weather conditions on the rain-soaked field, the Cardinals' defense froze out the Wildcats for most of the game. It wasn't until the final minutes of the second half that Louisburg finally broke through.

Coming close against the Frontier League champion did little to appease Eudora coach Gunar Harmon, however.

His team's now 2-13 on the season, and he said he's growing a little weary of close calls.

"We had a lot of great opportunities that we were unable to convert into goals," Harmon said. "But that's been the story of our season."

The Cardinal's defensive effort was impressive, though. Especially when considering the last time the two teams played, the Wildcats scored seven goals.

"I thought we played pretty well," senior Connor Hartpence said. "We did a good job of getting everyone back."

Goalkeeper Ben Miller had a solid game, stopping all but two of Louisburg's 15 shots on goal.

For most of the first 12 minutes, Eudora struggled to get the ball beyond midfield. Harmon said that tentative play had a lot to do with the players lack of comfort in his new defensive schemes for the game.

"We played an entirely different system for this game," Harmon said. "We wanted to play this system last time, but it didn't work out and we ended up just chasing them around the field.

"Today, we stuck with it throughout the game and it worked just up until the very end."

About midway through the first half, Eudora got its first shot on goal. About five minutes later, Logan Hartpence hit Chris Robinson with a pass in front of the Louisburg goal that he was almost able to direct into the goal with his head, but just narrowly missed.

The Louisburg defenders were repeatedly caught off guard, but managed to recover and reclaim their positions just in time to stop the Cardinals.

In the second half, the Cardinals defense stopped several close calls on free kicks by Louisburg.

Louisburg finally broke through to take a 1-0 lead with a little less than 20 minutes remaining.

Eudora struggled to tie the game, but failed and the Wildcats added an insurance in the second half's waning seconds, the clock expiring before the ball could even be dug from the net.

Eudora will play De Soto in its last regular season game at 6 p.m. Thursday in De Soto.

It's an important game for the Cardinals, and not just because it would give them much needed momentum heading into the regional tournament.

The squad picked up a program-first victory over De Soto to close out last year's regular season. To pull the trick again actually in De Soto would be even better, Hartpence said.

"We're moving the ball a lot better and we've got our system down," Hartpence said. "We really want to beat De Soto."