Salina South boys soccer looks to clean up communication errors after loss to Newton

A late-game communication breakdown, along with the Newton Railroaders' capitalization on those errors, led to Salina South boys soccer's third loss on the season Tuesday.

After a dominating first half of the season, quickly climbing to a 5-1 record, the Cougars have picked up a couple of losses from close contests, bringing their overall record to 6-3.

Their match against an undefeated Newton team came after a big win against Salina Central last week. The Cougars scored nine goals in their shutout win against the Mustangs.

But in a back-and-forth battle with the Railroaders on Tuesday, the late-game errors proved costly. Newton went on to score three goals in the second half.

"We just made some mistakes that we don't normally make, and we gave them two out of their three goals on just indecision," said head coach Trey Crow. "We just didn't create enough chances."

The Cougars' battle against the Railroaders came with plenty of midfield action, and an impressive outing from both teams' defensive play. South frequently got in Newton's half of the field, but failed to capitalize with shots at the goal.

Cougars defense keeps undefeated Newton team scoreless until the second half

Most of the evening was a defensive shootout, with both the Cougars and Newton squads protecting their halves of the field against all schemes toward the goal. At the first half horn, the contest remained scoreless.

But after the first five minutes of the second half, the Cougars felt communication mistakes take hold of the gameplay.

"We started off the first half possessing well, and in the second half we looked to maintain that same energy and... look to get out wide for that 45-degree ball... for some easy finishes, but those just didn't come," said senior Seth Flores.

The Newton squad was organized defensively and managed to cut short a lot of the Cougars' schemes toward the goal.

Salina South has passed the ball well all year and was able to pass the ball between the lines at times, but it was less consistent in Tuesday's matchup.

"Their defense, the way that they play, they have numbers in the middle and so it makes it really tough to get any quality shots in the middle of the field off," Crow said.

Salina South senior Carson Crow said the Cougars tried to force a lot going forward Tuesday, and that's one of the things they will focus on improving ahead of Thursday's game. They managed to get close to the goal multiple times, but couldn't capitalize.

"Just a little bit more creativity and communication up there is really the solution," Carson Crow said.

"Yeah, not looking for the perfect shot, also," said junior Rylan Snell.

Trey Crow said the game against Newton showed what the Cougars were capable of doing if they played at the level they know they can.

"I really thought this game was more evenly matched than what the score indicated," Trey Crow said. "The biggest thing is picking our heads back up and understanding we have some work to do."

Cougars look ahead to another tough opponent Thursday

The Cougars will take on Maize South on the Mavericks' home turf on Thursday. The Mavericks handed Salina South its first loss of the season back in early September.

"We've already played Maize South so we know what we need to do," Flores said. "We just need to find feet more, too, some of our passes were off tonight."

"We really just got to focus on communication and keeping the ball," Carson Crow said.

Heading into the latter half of the season, Trey Crow and his pack of Cougars will look to pick back up the momentum upon which their season began. Now, of course, it's about fine-tuning the details.

"We've got to figure out those small defensive things that we're giving up right now," Crow said. "Letting them get goalside, being indecisive, those types of things are easy to fix. The good news is that they're easy to fix, we just got to do it."

Kendrick Calfee has been a reporter with the Salina Journal since 2022. You can reach him at kcalfee@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @calfee_kc.

This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Salina South boys soccer looks to clean up communication errors