COFFEYVILLE — For the past three seasons, the Coffeyville-Field Kindley Golden Tornado soccer team had the upperhand in its season-opening match with perennial state power Rose Hill. This time around, the ‘Nado came up on the short end of a 1-0 loss to the Rockets on Friday at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“We learned a little about ourselves and hung in there pretty well against a solid Rose Hill team,” said ‘Nado coach Courey Feerer, who began his third season as head coach at FKHS. “I feel like we can build off of the performance tonight and do well in the SEK moving forward.”
The Golden Tornado — coming off a 14-3-1 campaign a year ago that included a second-place finish in the Southeast Kansas League — had knocked off Rose Hill each of the previous three seasons. That included a 2-1 road victory a year ago.
Field Kindley had a total of just four shots against the Rockets and could not get a shot past the Rose Hill goalkeeper the entire game.
The only goal from either side came in the 23rd minute when a Rocket player was able to get one past FKHS keeper Kevin Frazier.
Last season, the Golden Tornado lost just two games the entire regular season, both of those coming against SEK champion Pittsburg. FKHS eventually ended its season with a 3-0 loss to Thomas More Prep in the championship game of Class 4-3-2-1A Central/South Central Regional 1. It was the fourth straight year the ‘Nado lost in the regional title game after previous setbacks to Louisburg in 2015 and 2016 and Spring Hill in 2017.
Field Kindley, now 0-1 overall, will open up SEK play on Thursday when it travels to Fort Scott to take on the Tigers.