On Tuesday, the boys soccer team tied the Pike Red Devils  2-2 in their sixth MIC conference game to fall to 4-1-1 in the conference. Although Center Grove entered halftime leading 2-0, the Red Devils came back with two goals in the second half, including a goal with less than five minutes remaining to end the contest in a tie.

This was not the team’s first time giving up a halftime lead, and senior captain Carter Zuch knows it has to be a learning moment for the team moving forward.

“Hopefully it’s a wake up call that we can’t defend like crap,” Zuch said. “If we’re letting a team like this score two goals, we’ve got to wake up, and also we have to put more [goals] away so it doesn’t come down to the wire. We’ve go to just bury a team [and] demoralize a team.”

With this week’s tie, a MIC title will now require some assistance from North Central, a team that defeated Center Grove 1-0 two weeks ago and currently sits at 5-0 in the conference.

“I think it’s kind of an eye-opener,” senior Cooper Livermore said. “It kind of put us out of the MIC but we’re going to bounce back. We’re still in the runnings. We’re still one of the best teams in the MIC, so this is just a motivator for us to keep working on what we need to work on and get better.”

While Center Grove never led at North Central, Livermore felt they played a solid first half and held the Panthers scoreless. It wasn’t until the second half that North Central was able to finally grab the lead.

“In the attacking third we connected a lot of balls. We played the right balls and played the right through balls. We got a lot of chances,’ Livermore said, “but defensively we kind of got shut down. [In the] second half we kind of shut down and that’s kind of what got us but other than that our possession, our passing, our camaraderie and our teamwork…that’s all on top of it.”

One thing that team is now working on is continuing to press and play hard in the second half, no matter how much of a lead they hold.

“We need to work on not letting down when we’re up a few goals. That’s happened many times this season where teams have came back and came close to beating us and unfortunately [Pike] ended up tying us so we can’t afford any letdowns,” center midfielder Sam Brunsman said.

The boys soccer team will play their final MIC game of the season tonight when they travel to Lawrence North looking to rebound from Tuesday’s 2-2 tie with Pike.