Tabor sophomore Dallas Pruitt forces the issue and takes away the angle against Bethel senior Jason Wood. Pruitt ended up getting the better of this play, but Wood made his mark with a goal midway through the second half of the Threshers 6-3 win. Andrew Ottoson / Free Press
The Tabor College men’s soccer team closed out its season with a 6-3 loss to Bethel in the opening round of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference playoffs a week ago.
Bethel’s Galidore Ngapeth scored three times on five shots, and put the Bluejays behind 1-0 only 36 seconds into the game.
Bethel made it 2-0 on a strong finish by Emanuel Batu, who took a precise pass from Josh Laubenheimer and banged a shot off the iron to the right of Bluejay keeper Aaron Schmucker and into the net with 19:10 to play in the half.
Tabor had a golden chance to slash the lead in half when Andy Brubacher put a nice touch on a ball to keep a chance alive for Andy Adrian, who sent a pass arcing high across the front of the goal mouth, but Bethel’s keeper punched it away from the intended recipient waiting five yards from the left post.
The Threshers made the most of another chance, sending a pass down the left sideline that sprung Ngapeth, who promptly rocketed the 3-0 goal past Schmucker.
Another goal early in the second half made it 4-0 with 44 minutes remaining in the game.
Silas Hibbs, all-conference honorable mention for his performance this season, made it 4-1 with 41:25 to go, ripping a shot high under the bar from just inside the 18-yard box.
A goal by Bethel’s Jason Woods made it 5-1 at the 31:43 mark, and Ngapeth finished his hat trick 22 seconds later.
A hard collision between Schmucker and a teammate sent the Tabor keeper to the sideline with 13:54 left. Both Bluejays slid hard after a ball to deny Bethel’s Braden Dragomir a chance to score and collided heavily on the ground.
Sam Flaming came on to the pitch, and the Bluejays mounted an effective counter-attack after the first of several sharp saves, scoring to make it 6-2 at 5:51.
Adrian added Tabor’s final goal, bouncing a shot through traffic and with 1:40 left.
Bethel was bounced from the conference tournament by Friends, who posted a 1-0 shutout against the Threshers and a 2-1 overtime win over McPherson to claim the post-season tournament title.
The conference released its 2007 awards earlier in the day, naming Chris Adrian to the all-KCAC men’s second team. Jessica Burden was named to the women’s second team, with keeper Aubrey Whitehorn receiving honorable mention on the women’s side.
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