The Soccer Aces continued tournament play Thursday night, heading to Teutopolis to take on the Wooden Shoes & coming out with a 4-1 victory. The Aces scored first in the 27th minute when Britton Heinrich scored on an assist from Iacopo Clementi. The first half would end with just the single goal, but the Aces quickly added a goal at the start of the 2nd half when Rayce Loudermilk scored on a penalty kick after getting fouled in the box.Teutopolis cut the Aces lead to 1 goal, scoring on their own penalty kick 12 minutes into the 2nd half. Beau Stipp then scored in the 51st minute on an assist from Loudermilk to give the Aces some breathing room again, with Loudermilk adding the last goal on an assist from Francesco Terna 5 minutes later to seal the win. The Aces took 12 shots for the game, 10 on frame, and had 5 additional chances created. The Wooden Shoes took 4 shots, 3 on frame. Tye Kanipe had 3 saves officially, but was aggressive all game in coming out and denying shots before they could happen.

After the easy win Tuesday, it seemed to take us a little bit of time to adjust to the intensity of a game against a tougher opponent. Teutopolis is a good team and they were a bit more aggressive than us at the start, but once we began to pick up our intensity and started to pressure the ball quicker defensively, we gradually took control of the match & got stronger as time wore on. The Heinrich and Stipp goals were pretty big for us. Heinrich gave us a lift with that first goal and when Stipp scored, it was a big response to the penalty kick that had brought Teutopolis within 1 score. We knew coming in that this game would be more of a test for us and I was curious to see how we would respond to it, & I have to say I’m really proud of the way we played tonight. We took a minute to adjust but once we did, we were pretty convincing against a solid team. Particularly after T-town got their goal, I was happy to see that we didn’t play scared or overly worried about protecting the slim lead, but rather we turned it up and played even more aggressively and pretty much kept the ball on their half of the field in the 2nd half. It showed some of the potential the team has this season and it was exciting to watch as coach.

The win added 3 points to the Aces' tournament total, giving them 6 points, placing them in a tie with 2 other teams. The Aces' goal differential in the 2 games thus far breaks the tie though & has them in 1st place with 2 matches left to play. The Aces continue play with an early Saturday morning match in Effingham followed by an early afternoon match in Teutopolis. The Aces stand 2-0 on the season.