Comet soccer team loses ‘maiden voyage’ to Sailors, 6-0

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

WATERLOO — In basketball, they say there is no such thing as an “easy 2”.

In soccer, the existence of a “free kick” has also been scrutinized.

It’s just a matter of who ends up paying.

Though it was a relatively mild early spring day Thursday, there was still enough chill in the air to harden the ball and make it resoundingly sting and stun whenever it made pointblank contact with the face, head and areas below the belt.

In their belated season-opener against hosting Columbus Catholic, Charles City’s varsity and junior varsity teams often took the brunt of playing “hard ball” with the Sailors, who were able to pelt the Comets with a substantial shots-on-goal and direct kick advantage.

In the varsity game, Comet keeper Ben Schwickerath was often forced to put his well-being on the line while recording a Mariano Rivera-amount of saves — sometimes coming well out of the goal to confront a break-away Sailor in the open field one-on-one.

But the newly formed soccer program’s “maiden voyage” against the Sailors proved to be an expected rough passage as the Comet varsity lost 6-0 after falling behind 4-0 midway through the first half.

One of Charles City’s best scoring opportunities came late in the second half when senior forward Nathan Baltes managed to control a long upfield pass with his head to give himself an open path to the Sailors’ goal.

However, Baltes was fouled resulting in an awarded direct “free” kick 15 yards to the right of the goal. Columbus was willing to stand tall and form a barrier line to take Baltes’ pending shot for a deflection to turn away the threat.

In the subsequent junior varsity game, Columbus Catholic was able to win big but it couldn’t prevent Charles City sophomore Wyatt Streich from scoring the first Comet goal in school history.