Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – City High scored 75 goals in its first 19 matches this season.

The Little Hawks found the most in opportunistic moment for a rare offensive off night.

Sixth-ranked Ames (15-3-1) held City High scoreless for the first time this season in a 1-0 win over the Little Hawks in a Class 4A state quarterfinal on Monday at the University of Iowa Soccer Complex in Iowa City.

“We have been successful scoring many goals the whole year and I would like see the stats, we had to have over 20 shots and we could not put them on target,” City High coach Jose Fajardo said. “We need to take a lot of the responsibility for not winning today.”

City High (15-2-3) had a five-match winning streak snapped with the loss and bowed out of the state tournament in the opening round for the second consecutive season.

The Little Hawks had scored 34 goals during its five-match win streak but couldn’t crack the code against a stingy Ames defense on Monday.

It was the 12^th shutout win for Ames this season and sends the Little Cyclones into the 4A semifinals where they will face fourth-ranked Johnston on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Mediacom Stadium in Des Moines.

“They have done this before, they beat Johnston 1-0 and Valley 1-0 and Ankeny Centennial 2-1,” Fajardo said of Ames. “They find a way to score a goal and we could not score today.”

Ames scored just two minutes into the game when Joel Martinez headed in a Ethan Sigurdsson corner kick for what would prove to be the game winner.

“Ethan Sigurdsson can hit a really good ball in with his left foot or right foot and we try to mix up our runs,” Ames coach Ryan McGowan said. “We’ve been really dangerous with set pieces all year and that was definitely a thing that we wanted to try to get tonight if we could create a couple of chances with set pieces.”

The Martinez header in the 2^nd minute proved to be one of just a handful of scoring opportunities for the Little Cyclones and all the scoring that Ames would need.

“They had one chance and they put it away,” Fajardo said. “I don’t know that our goal keeper touched the ball in a dangerous way for the rest of the game, maybe one time on a long cross, but we did not defend well on that corner and that was our fault.”

City High put pressure on the Ames defense all night but couldn’t pull even.

The Little Hawks had several strong chances in the final 20 minutes but never found the back of the net.

“We just say we will take anyone anywhere,” McGowan said. “We’ve been battled tested this year with Johnston, Valley, Dowling and Ankeny and they are obviously a very, very good team that is right there with the best. We know there is a ton of parity in 4A boys soccer this year. There are 12 or 13 teams going into postseason play that we felt could win it all and we felt like we were one of them.”

The loss ends the careers for 10 City High seniors that played a key role in the helping the Little Hawks to 27 wins over the past two seasons and back-to-back state tournament appearances.

“I think it’s just an amazing group of guys,” Fajardo said. “They are amazing guys and amazing soccer players and some of them will be playing in college and they will all be successful.”

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