Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – For the past four seasons the seniors on the Clear Creek Amana have found ways to win matches.

In all the CCA seniors helped account for 59 wins in their prep career.

The Clippers couldn’t make it an even 60 on Tuesday.

Abby Reding scored a pair of first-half goals as Grinnell (8-9) stunned No. 12 Clear Creek Amana 2-0 in the Class 2A Region 7 semifinals in Tiffin.

“It’s awful to be done before maybe you think you should be done,” Clear Creek Amana coach Matt Harding said. “We took Grinnell seriously, we put effort into scouting them and trying to have a game plan ready for them it just didn’t come off tonight like it had so many times for this group the past four years.”

The win was the fifth in six matches for Grinnell following a 3-8 start to the season and sends the Tigers to the Region 7 title game.

Grinnell will face sixth-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier on Monday for a spot in the Class 2A state tournament.

“It was just getting the ball to bounce our way and putting an entire 80 minutes into the game and that’s what we did today,” Grinnell coach Paul Durr said. “We put 80 minutes into the game instead of playing a good or a good 70. For 80 minutes the girl played.”

Clear Creek Amana closed the season 14-4, its fourth consecutive season with at least 14 wins.

The senior class, that includes all-stater Hannah Bormann who leaves as the Clippers career scoring leader with 124 career goals, played a key role in all four of those seasons going 59-15 over the past four years.

“Some things I wasn’t even aware of until the other day how special the entire four years have been,” Harding said. “It’s going to really sting for 48 hours but they can be really proud of where they have lifted the program to.”

Grinnell jumped to a quick 1-0 lead when Reding knocked in a shot from close range less than 10 minutes into the match.

Reding made it 2-0 converting her second goal of the match and 10th of the season in the 33rd minute.

“They didn’t have a lot of shots in the first half but the ones they did they put in,” Harding said. “Fair credit to them.”

Clear Creek Amana had opportunities to get back in the game after halftime.

Bormann had a chance to cut the lead in half in the 60th minute but her penalty kick was saved by Grinnell keeper Katie Cooper.

“We didn’t buckle,” Harding said. “I think we were still finding ways to connect passes and get forward in the second it just didn’t come off for us and that will happen sometimes.”

The Clippers kept pushing late and had a chance to get back into the match in the 70th minute when Cooper let a shot squirt out of her grasp.

However, Alexis Schau couldn’t get a foot on a potential rebound shot before Cooper eventually corralled the ball to keep the lead 2-0.

“Grinnell played really hard tonight and we had an idea of what was coming at us and didn’t deal with it quite like we needed to in the first half,” Harding said. “Into the wind in the second half I thought we were playing better soccer it’s just a shame we didn’t put two halves together like that tonight.”