by Noah Grant/Sports Director/@noahgrant_23

ST. CLOUD, Minn. – It was a back and forth battle at Tech High School on Tuesday as the St. Cloud Tech Tigers boys soccer team hosted the Willmar Cardinals. The Tigers broke through in the final ten minutes and survived a frantic Willmar comeback attempt to win 3-2. 

The Cardinals opened the scoring just five and half minutes in as Isaiah Munoz drilled a terrific strike into the upper 90 for the early lead. That advantage wouldn’t last long, however, as the Tigers fought back six minutes later. 

Senior Abdishakur Mohammed fed a pass through the defense to junior Vaughn Blair, who was able to push the ball around the onrushing Willmar keeper to even the score.

Neither side was able to find the back of the net for the remainder of the first half. 

In the second half, Cardinals keeper Luis Gomez was busy, as the Tigers totaled nine corner kicks in the match but were unable to score off the set piece attempts. The best look came from senior Abdirahman Salad who was stopped by a diving Gomez. 

With 8:49 to go, the Tigers finally broke through off a free kick from 45 yards out. Junior Abdullahi Ahmed rolled the ball to junior Jett Gaetz, and Gaetz’s long pass into the penalty area was right onto the foot of Abdisalan Ali who buried it home for the go-ahead goal. 

Salad tallied an insurance marker four minutes later to put the Tigers up 3-1 and the home crowd could sense victory. 

The Cardinals weren’t done yet, though. Sudays Farah pushed past a Tigers defender and crossed the ball for Dylan Torres who headed it home with 2:58 to play. St. Cloud Tech held down the fort from there for the victory.

The Tigers improve to 8-1-1 in conference play and 10-3-1 overall. St. Cloud hosts Cloquet/Esko/Carlton on Saturday at 3 p.m. to round out the regular season.