Wayne Ward

Pictured is the PV boys soccer team at a team dinner at Happy Joes.

The PV boys’ soccer team played a game on April 27th against Ankeny Centennial, the second best team in class 3A. At the sound of the final horn, PV remained victorious, with a 2-1 win over Centennial.

Going into the game, the boys were ranked seventh in class 3A soccer; however, after the game, they left with a win and moved up three spots in the rankings to fourth place.

Going into the game, head coach Wayne Ward had one thing in mind, “be tough.” Ward believed, “[The team] has the talent, but [I believe] being hard and resilient is a quality we need to instill in the program.”

Junior Jack Donahue was one of the two people who scored a goal during the game. Donahue tried to stay calm throughout the game and to have fun. “Our mindset going into the game was to focus on ourselves and to make sure we play our best game rather than worrying about our opponents,” said Donahue.

Along with Donahue, senior Reece Spangler was the other player to score a goal for PV–which helped lead the team to victory.

Ward loved the intensity of this game because it was a good practice run to see how games at the state tournament will go. “It was an important game and ‘stress test’ to allow us to compare us to competition that could be in Des Moines in June. We wanted to get a result, but more importantly, we wanted to see how we rated,” said Ward.

The PV vs Ankeny Centennial game was apart of a tournament hosted by Ankeny Centennial. Along with Centennial, Iowa City High and Bettendorf were also apart of the tournament with PV. The Iowa City High game was scheduled to be played after the PV versus Centennial, but it got canceled along with the rest of the tournament due to the weather.

After the game was over, the whole team was so happy over the major victory against Ankeny Centennial. “After the final whistle, we were ecstatic. Even on the long bus ride home, we were all happy with how the game went,” said Donahue.

Although this game was a huge success for the team, they still have more work to do this season. “We don’t need to get carried away…we [still] have a long way to go. [However], the result and the stats show that we have the ability to compete with the best in the state,” said Ward.

The boys will continue their season with their next home game this Tuesday against Iowa City Regina hoping to keep their winning streak alive.