Woodland and Southside play thrilling draw in Kansas City Derby

Tackles flew in hard, arguments were escalating between players, coaches, and referees. It was a match that saw a player from each team sent off, one for a shove to the face, and one for denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity. In the history of the Kansas City Derby, with the exception of one match, all bouts between these two teams have been decided by no more than 1 goal.

When these two titans of KC soccer squared off last season, round 1 ended in a 3-3 draw that saw Southside claw back from being down 2-0, and get a goal back right at full time to knot it up. Woodland would return the favor at Southside a few weeks later when they traveled to Red Bridge and took down their rivals 5-4 in an incredible back-forth heavyweight fight, with TJ Mikkelson scoring the winner with 15-minutes to go.

Woodland has never lost to Southside, and the all time standings of the matchup favor Woodland by a score of 3-0-2. The clubs are inseparably linked, always vying for league titles against each other, and always going blow-blow. This season, however, the circumstances surrounding the match have never been seen before. Coming into the match, Woodland were undefeated, and ranked 3rd of the 53 teams in the MWPL. Southside, on the other hand, were floundering. They had scored only 2 goals at the time, lost their first 3 matches, and had just been blown out by AFC Columbia by a score of 10-0. That is not a typo. This proud organization had fallen on hard times.

But form is irrelevant when it comes to the Derby. These two teams hate each other, and find an extra gear when they see each other's badges.

The match opened with largely one-way traffic as Woodland laid siege to the Southside goal. Woodland attacked in wave after wave for close to 30 minutes forcing saves from Southside's keeper Curiele. MWPL Gateway West Player of the Month, Girma Kassa, came close on multiple occasions, as well as standout midfielder Nico Theberge.

Woodland debutant Landon Vincent, one of Woodland's four high school players on the roster, headed a ball down off a corner that had to be cleared off the line by Southside.

It was in the 26th that the deadlock would be broken finally. Falco Dijkhuis stepped past Ebrahhim Diagne in Southside's attack, intercepted the ball, and sprung Kassa free on a counter. Kassa fired low, but Curiele could only parry ball right back into Kassa's path, where he cooly slotted it home at the second time of asking.

1-0

There's always drama in the derby, and it would come in the 34th minute. A coming-together happened between Kassa and Southside's Jaime Borjas. Kassa was shown a red card, and Woodland were down to 10 men. The very next attacking sequence, Southside marched down the field through Devon Rustchmann, Michael Okiring, and crossed a ball low which Ebrahim Diagne finished well past Woodland's despairing Kevin Cuenca.

1-1

Both teams would go into halftime deadlocked, but Woodland still looked the better team despite being down a man.

Halftime

Woodland broke out of the half with renewed vigor. Mikkelson found Theberge making a run through the middle. He broke past the defense, and was about to shoot, when Southside's Zach Lattimer pulled him down from behind, denying a clear goal scoring opportunity, earning himself a red card, and dropping both teams to 10 men.

The match ground to a rather unfortunate halt, as both teams struggled to figure out the new 10v10 configuration. Both teams had some form of half-chance, but nothing overly concrete. The closest opportunity came late in the second half when TJ Mikkelson found himself through on goal, and being pressed by the keeper to a 50/50 ball. Mikkelson beat him to it, touched it around the keeper, but couldn't catch up to the ball to tap it home as it agonizingly rolled out for a goal kick.

The referee blew full time, and both teams had to settle for a point, and another closely contested match in this storied rivalry.

You can watch the match replay here.

You can support Woodland and get some awesome merch from Diaza here.