Eagles win over Antigo in PKs

Northland Pines junior goalkeeper Easton Otto came out of the net during penalty kicks Oct. 9 and won the game with his kick as the Eagles topped Antigo in a Great Northern Conference match in Eagle River. After regulation, a 4-4 game led to Pines outscoring Antigo 4-2 in the five penalty kicks. 

It was a redemption match from a 1-0 loss the Eagles took to the Red Robins earlier in the season. 

The team’s leading scorer, Ryan Rydeski, scored two goals in regulation and one during PKs, and had one assist on the night. 

Pines held a 4-2 advantage in the late going before allowing two goals in the 73rd and 79th minutes to force the game to penalties. 

Rydeski had this to say after the game about the team's win and getting a game back against Antigo 

“Everybody played hard, everybody wanted it. Since we tied, the ending was rough, but it was good,” he said. “We played good. We passed good. We played strong, especially since we have a younger team. It feels good because we probably should have beaten them the first time, and we got our redemption.” 

Antigo got on the board early and gained the 1-0 advantage within the opening four minutes of the game. 

Freshman Simon Adamovich answered later on in the first half as he created his own opportunity with the sliding kick into the back of the net from the left wing. A 1-1 tie remained until the 26th minute. A Pines defender tried to play a tough ball up in the air, and Antigo picked it up and beat Otto with a shot to the top left corner. A handful of minutes later, Rydeski capitalized on his first of many chances on net. A perfect ball from junior Tyler Vojta found Rydeski, and he let a shot loose from outside the 18-yard box after Antigo’s keeper aggressively pushed out of the net to play the ball. That made it a 2-2 game, which ended up being the halftime score. Rydeski found another to break the tie in the 46th minute. He found some space and fired a shot off his right foot that found twine to go ahead 3-2. 

Almost 20 minutes later, the Eagles were awarded a free kick, and junior Jackson Olejniczak buried a shot to make it a 4-2 game late. Antigo pressured the Pines defense multiple times in the last 16 minutes of game time and was able to steal two goals in the

73rd minute on a one-on-one chance against Otto and a scramble play in front of the net in the 79th minute to tie things up. 

The game went into penalty kicks and the Eagles outlasted the Red Robins with goals by Rydeski, Olejniczak, Iland Shepherdson and Otto. 

The team heads into a busy week next week with a home game against Merrill next Monday, a road game at Rhinelander on Tuesday at 7 p.m., and will end the week at home in the final Great Northern Conference game of the year versus Lakeland.