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- Hickman High School head coach Adam Taylor gives his team a pep talk during the halftime break of the semi-final round of the 2009 state soccer championships on Friday night in Fenton, Mo.
- From left, Hickman Kewpie Colin Janicek and Alex Holliday wait for the action to recommence as CBC fans heckle them in the background on Friday night. The Kewpies lost their semi-final game of the State tournament against the Christian Brothers College Cadets, 6-2.
FENTON — The duck call went silent.
Curtis Hicks decided two weeks ago that there wasn’t enough crowd noise at Hickman’s boys soccer games, so he brought a duck call to last week’s victory over Kickapoo High School.
“It brought the crowd alive,” Hicks said. “A few kids were like, ‘That’s weird.’ It’s one of the top (noise makers).”
When a few more students joined the flock, he asked around for duck calls from friends. Some brought their own to the game.
It wasn’t enough for the Kewpies on Friday. Hickman lost 6-2 to Christian Brothers College in the semifinal round of the 42nd MSHSAA Boys Soccer Championships in Fenton.
The Kewpies are now 8-10 in their nine trips to the state playoffs. They have never played in the championship game.
“We came in a little bit on our heels, in awe of the situation,” Kewpies coach Adam Taylor said. “It’s hard to get a team prepared after a week layoff. Our goal was not to let up an early goal. And when that goal came, it let a little bit of air out of us. You can’t be in an uphill crawl against a team like that.”
Christian Brothers scored in the fifth minute of the game and led 3-0 after 14 minutes of play. Hickman forward George Plakorus scored with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, but the Cadets responded with a goal about 30 seconds later to take a 5-1 lead into halftime.
“Four-one would’ve been great,” Taylor said. “Soccer works like that. You score a goal and sixty percent of the time someone comes in and scores a goal like that.”
Christian Brothers scored a goal early in the second half, which Kewpies forward Taylor Cox followed with a header for the game’s final goal.
The loss places Hickman in the third-place game at 1 p.m. Saturday. It plays the loser of the St. Louis University and Park Hill semifinal game.
“We knew this was going to be a challenging weekend,” Taylor said. “You can’t lose two games. There’s a lot entitled to a weekend like this. A week layoff after you’ve been playing in the districts in back-to-back nights is tough.”
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