Before it even started, the boys on the Wildcats’ soccer team knew that the game was going to be tough. Every year, when De Soto High School plays Louisburg, the hour-long game is always a little brutal.

“It’s always a rough game when we play Louisburg. It wasn’t surprising as far as the nature of the game,” assistant coach Jesse Smith said.

Before the game even started everyone in the stadium could feel the tension on the field, but less then six minutes into the game, De Soto was up 2-0. This bliss did not last long though. Throughout the entire game there were many shoves, kicks and pulls from both teams.

Not long after half time, a De Soto player was fouled and the penalty on the Louisburg player was not called. Head coach Darren Erpelding was not happy with the referee for not calling the penalty and ended up being ejected from the stadium for the remainder of the game.

“I asked [the referee] what got me ejected and he turned around and wouldn’t answer me. I’m guessing because I told him he was terrible and it was a terrible call, a bad call and a wrong call about 17 times probably did it for me,” Erpelding said.

Even the Louisburg coach was overheard saying that the referee was missing calls on both sides.

Overall, despite the center referee, the game was successful for the De Soto Wildcats.

“[The game] went pretty well. There are a lot of things we could have improved on. We had a lot of close shots. We could have been a little more accurate on our passes but when you are playing a bad team you don’t have to necessarily get everything right. We capitalized on five opportunities and that is five more than they had,” junior Justin Slater said.

The De Soto Wildcats ended the game with a 5-1 win over the Louisburg Wildcats.