Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – It took some time but the goals are coming for City High.

After going more than 200 minutes without a goal to open the season the Little Hawks have put up 14 goals in its last three matches following a 4-0 win over Liberty High on Tuesday in Iowa City.

What has City High done to trigger it’s scoring explosion?

It’s actually what the Little Hawks didn’t do during their slow start to the season.

“I think the biggest thing is they didn’t panic, they didn’t get discouraged,” first-year City High head coach Phillip Hansen said. “They knew if they trusted the system and stuck to what we talk about and we preach that the goals would come.”

Senior Sam Schroder and freshman Morgan Turner each scored twice on Tuesday as City High (4-2) scored four or more goals for the third straight match.

Since being shutout in back-to-back losses to open the season City High has rattled of four straight wins while outscoring opponents 15-1.

The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for Liberty High which dropped to 4-4 on the season.

“We are a young team so we are starting to realize how to work as a whole team and it took those first couple of games for us to do that,” Turner said. “We have really started to see what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are and that has helped us play together more.”

Schroder didn’t waste any time continuing the City High offensive success on Tuesday giving the Little Hawks an early cushion with her first goal of the match.

“I noticed that their keeper was a little on the shorter side so I wanted to test if she could hold on to it,” Schroder said. “I just tried to put one on frame and it got in.”

Turner made it 2-0 City High when she took a deep pass from Callie Menzel and slipped a shot past charging Liberty High keeper Debbie Bonilla from just inside the box.

The Turner goal gave City High a 2-0 lead just 22 minutes into the match.

“Coach Hansen told me to start making those diagonal runs because I always make the same runs and Liberty started reading them,” Menzel said. “I did what he told me to and Callie played an amazing ball right to my feet.”

Turner and Schroder each added second-half goals and City High posted its third shutout of the season.

A goal from Turner in the 50th minute made it 3-0 City High and Schroder capped the scoring with her team-high sixth goal of the season in the 58th minute.

“I think being up two that quickly that makes it hard on a team,” Schroder said. “We were able to keep possession the rest of the game and we didn’t have to force it that much. We just laid back a little more and took the shots that we had.”

Schroder has led the City High offensive outburst scoring two goals in three consecutive games.

The six goals for Schroder give the senior midfielder a new career high just six matches into the season.  

“I think since the West game we have scored more than 10 goals and that has been a really big confidence booster for us,” Schroder said. “The fact that we can get some shots on goal in real time situations that is going to get us ready for our big games coming up.”

“It’s been such a group going forward it hasn’t just been one person,” Hansen said. “It’s a mix that we had to figure out so it took a couple of games but I think we have found a good mix going forward.”

Six Little Hawks have scored goals during their current four-match winning streak with Turner and Schroder accounting for nine goals during that span.

“It’s been such a group going forward it hasn’t just been one person,” Hansen said. “It’s a mix that we had to figure out so it took a couple of games but I think we have found a good mix going forward.”

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