Pattonville Holds off Parkway North in Nonconference Matchup

For a while Monday, it looked like it was going to be all in the Pirates' nonconference matchup against .

Sixty minutes into the match, there was no reason to believe anything else. But someone lit the light bulbs for the Vikings, and they were able to make a match of it.

Spotting the Pirates a pair of first-half goals, Parkway North struck late with a furious spurt. But Pattonville was able to hang on for a 2-1 victory Monday afternoon at Pattonville High School.

Akeem Lewis and Rob O'Keefe goals were enough for Pattonville (2-1) to hold off a Parkway North squad (1-4) that got a late goal from Marcos Rivas-Middleton and continued to push forward looking for an equalizer. But the Pirates defended well enough to win and continue to create an identity with .

"Nothing like having that third goal in the game go to the guys who are two goals down," Stahl joked. "All of the sudden, they're all faster, they're all willing to do things, and they sure took it to us."

When asked if his team is still searching for that identity, Stahl said, "More than you know...mine and theirs. So far, I don't have a whole lot to be upset about because I don't know the kids as well as I'd like to yet. I'm finding those things out."

Stahl found out that the Pirates can play a blanket-style defense with their back four that limited Parkway North's opportunities.

"We were happy with the way we defended," Stahl said. "We'll get a chance to do some more defending on Thursday (at Vianney)."

They got the offense they needed when Lewis was alone along the right side of the box and hit a low shot past Vikings keeper Justin Rosenthal 19 minutes 23 seconds into the match. O'Keefe then slammed home what would be the eventual game-winner with 11:49 left in the half.

"We didn't mark up on their first goal; a guy was standing open in the box, and the second goal, you've got to hand it to (O'Keefe), he just really took our team apart there," Parkway North coach Dave Beck.

"I think we had to have more patience," Beck added. "Sometimes we don't do ourselves enough credit with the time that we have. We force things and we rush things. To give them credit, they're a hard-nosed team, but there were times where we forced things and kind of played into their hands. Once we got settled, started knocking the ball around a bit. It took a while but we finally started getting it at the end there."

The Vikings finally showed some life when Rivas-Middleton was able to head in a low delivery past Erik Solario off a feed from from Howard Miller, who got past Pirates left back Matt Tiefenbrunn before delivering the ball.

The goal sliced Pattonville's lead in half with 13:06 remaining and made the last minutes rather interesting.

"If we play the whole game like we did the last 20 minutes, I think we have better results," Beck said. "I think it took a little time to wake up today. Of course you can't go down two goals and then decide to start playing.

"I do like the way we battled back. We're still a young team, we're still feeling things out....There's a lot of things we still need to address, but I think the positive we can take is those 20 minutes we did seem to dominate. We moved the ball around like we wanted to, we were getting shots and attacking. We can use those last 20 minutes to build on."

Stahl said the goals his team earned Monday were well-deserved.

"Akeem's goal was as good as anything we've hit this year," Stahl said. "And then Rob turned on a ball real well and put that away. Those were the difference-makers in the game. I certainly thought (Parkway North) had as much of the play as we did."

NONCONFERENCE

PATTONVILLE 2, PARKWAY NORTH 1

Parkway North 0  1  --  1

Pattonville        2  0  --  2

Scoring

First Half

PA -- Lewis (unassisted), 19:23.

PA -- O'Keefe (unassisted), 28:11.

Second Half

PN -- Rivas-Middleton (Miller), 66:54.

Statistics

Shots: Parkway North 12, Pattonville 9

Corners: Parkway North 5, Pattonville 2

Fouls: Parkway North 7, Pattonville 8

Goalkeepers/Saves: Justin Rosenthal (Parkway North) 4 saves; Erik Solario (Pattonville) 4 saves.