The Pierre Governor soccer teams will begin its quest to the state championship today as the playoffs begin for both the boys and girls teams as the girls will host Rapid City Central in the 1-16 matchup while the boys will travel to Watertown in the 2-15.
On the last full day of the season, neither the Pierre Governors or Harrisburg Tigers played, but the results of the day pushed the Govs above the Tigers to take over the top seed in Class AA and the Govs will be guaranteed to host to the state championship as long as they continue to win. The Govs open the playoffs with a team they didn’t see in the regular season in Rapid City Central. The Cobblers, the 16th seed, come in at 3-8-2 on the year and are 0-3-2 in the last five contests. Pierre is at 11-1-1 heading into the playoffs and while they are 0-1-1 in the last two games, they have a shutout against the Harrisburg Tigers who went unbeaten at 12-0-2. The Govs will look to stay on track and jump back into the win column as the top seed eyes a deep playoff run. Emlyn Swanson has seven shutouts in 13 games with Pierre allowing two goals only once all season.
The Governor boys will get another chance at Watertown after falling early in the season with a 2-0 final score. Watertown, also unbeaten, is the two seed in Class AA at 13-0-1 while the Govs are 3-6-4 heading into the playoffs at the 15 seed. The Arrows are led by Roger Carranza with 16 goals, as he had both goals for the Arrows in the first meeting back on August 20. The Arrow offense is prolific scoring over four goals per game, but the Governors and Yankton Bucks are the only teams to hold the Arrows under three goals other than the 0-0 draw with Harrisburg. Caiden Ahartz and Jacoby LaRoche, the leading scorers for the Govs will look to jump start the offense, but also play great defense in front of goalie Carter Templeton to pull off a big upset in the first round.
The girls game will kickoff at 5:00 at the PILC Fields in Pierre. Coverage of the boys game will begin at 4:40 with a 5:00 kickoff from Watertown on KCCR and on YouTube at KCCR Sports with Jon Winkler and Mendel Miller on the call.
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