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North Putnam clears final hurdle in Indian Creek to win WIC boys' soccer title
BAINBRIDGE – After its win against Greencastle Aug. 28, North Putnam was in a race against itself to close out the final three WIC boys’ soccer contests and claim a title the school never had acquired before in the sport: a conference title.
Wins over West Vigo and Northview left just Indian Creek as the last hurdle to overcome and, despite seeing their 10-match winning streak snapped at Crawfordsville just two days before, the Cougars didn’t falter, defeating the Braves 4-1 to sweep the conference slate and stand alone atop the WIC boys’ soccer peak.
“In Indian Creek, you’re seeing a team that’s very young as a program, so they are working through some of the same things we were five or six years ago,” North Putnam head coach Kyle Morgan said. “They have some talent, play very intense and we had to work through that emotion and intensity, which we handled eventually.
“We let in a goal to make things tense but rode the momentum of their emotion by staying pretty level and at the end of the day, it worked out. We created a lot of chances, a lot of good chances, and that was the ballgame.”
North Putnam shot out to a 1-0 lead after just three minutes after Nolan Hackleman worked down the left hand channel, squaring to Brayden Chew, who slammed a shot past Nick Jackson in goal.
Indian Creek, a program still in its infancy as it competes in its second year, showed it had talent up front to give the hosts problems as sophomore Conner Ratcliff got the better of Jaylen Windmiller just a few minutes later but Michael Ali was off his line quickly to smother the shot.
Ratcliff had better luck 13 minutes in when fellow sophomore Aiden Long worked down the left wing, crossing back to the lanky forward, who was able to get a shot away before Ali was able to close the distance, leveling the match at 1-1.
Just 90 seconds later, the Cougars were back in front after being awarded a penalty for handball in the box, Evan Polley putting a low into the left corner to make it 2-1.
A good passing move saw the ball reach Ratcliff again, though he pushed his shot wide of goal, midway through the half while the home side toiled away trying to break past defenders Nate Balasian and Caiden Flora, both provided cover along the back for Indian Creek.
Hackleman would eventually give North Putnam the chance to create daylight between the two teams after being caught in the box four minutes from halftime with Brayden Neureiter copying Polley’s example to a T, giving the Cougars a 3-1 lead at the break.
The hosts made it 4-1 five minutes after the restart when Hackleman took a throw-in down the left channel to the byline, pulling several defenders to him as he moved towards goal, before cutting back to Chew in the middle of the box for his second goal of the afternoon.
Indian Creek made occasional forays forward but North Putnam continued to push for a goal to finish the match as a contest, Hackleman having the best chance to do so but failing to put a shot on target with 15 minutes to go.
The miss mattered little in the end as the Cougars saw out the remaining minutes to claim the school’s first soccer conference title and only its third WIC title as a school, joining the 2019 volleyball team and the 2021-22 boys’ swim team in the trophy case.
“We finished second two years in-a-row because we couldn’t beat Greencastle, so beating them (this year) opened that door,” Morgan said about claiming the conference title. “The conference title went through that game and winning that game set up (Saturday); if we don’t win, we’re playing to hold on for second.
“The boys wanted this pretty bad. In our goals before the season, we wanted to win the conference and to do that, we knew we had to beat Greencastle. We did that and we now get to enjoy the conference title.”