Coffman and Bempah will play against each other after they played together this summer.
Gentry Coffman and Kofi Bempah have played together on a Columbia Pride soccer team for the past three summers. Tonight, they will match up against each other.
Coffman, a junior at Rock Bridge, and Bempah, a senior at Hickman, are both standout captains on their respective squads. When Rock Bridge travels to Hickman tonight for a Class 3 District 10 derby, the two will be defending each other.
In the summer, Coffman is a center midfielder and Bempah is a striker. But for their schools, Bempah starts at left wing and Coffman at right wing. Both have been on their varsity squads since they were sophomores, facing off for the first time last year. The last time the the schools met, Rock Bridge won 1-0 on a penalty kick in double overtime, but the encounter between Bempah and Coffman was a draw.
“We battled it out,” Coffman said. “Neither of us got the better of the other.”
Neither expect an easy task defending the other player tonight since they each have different styles of play. Bempah said Coffman’s vision on the field is what makes him a good player.
“He is always looking for an open teammate,” Bempah said. “He is creative in the middle and can usually find a way to get the ball to his teammates.”
And Bempah’s strongest attribute, Coffman said, is his touch on the ball.
“He’s really good with his feet,” Coffman said. “It’s hard to play against a guy who can dance with the ball like that.”
Bempah and Coffman will be sure to talk to each other at some point tonight, but their friendship will not interfere with the game at hand. The coaches, Kirby Keth of Rock Bridge and Hickman’s Jon Strodtman, are hoping that those relationships do not interfere with the game. A majority of each team played together this summer for some Columbia Pride team — six players from the Bruins varsity team and five players from Hickman’s varsity team played on Coffman and Bempah’s team.
“It’s usually not a very good game,” Strodtman said, because the players are too hyped up playing their biggest rival and make a lot of mistakes.
Keth agreed, and said the Rock Bridge team approached practice Tuesday with the same attitude as any other day.
Keth doesn’t want his team’s effort to be lessened because they are friends with their opponents, and he hopes that it is his team that keeps enough composure to win.
“I am looking forward to playing a chess game with Jon tomorrow night,” Keth said. “As coaches, we try to do the best we can in preparing our guys.”
Bempah and Coffman will likely get one more chance to defend each other on Oct. 23, but tonight’s match is more important because it has district implications. When they play again, the seedings for the district tournament will be set and the coaches usually use the game to experiment with new formations and players.
The two might not play on the same team again, either. Coffman decided to play for a club team in St. Louis this summer. That won’t affect Bempah’s outlook, though.
“We see these guys a lot,” Bempah said. “It’s always good to win.”