Arcadia battles past Newman Catholic, bounced by Aquinas

Lengthy lightning delays made for a late night for the Arcadia boys’ soccer team in their playoff opener, but the Raiders fought through less-than-ideal circumstances to keep their season alive a little longer.

Third-seeded Arcadia battled past sixth-seeded Newman Catholic for a 5-2 victory in their Division 4 regional semifinal clash in Arcadia on Thursday.

The start of the match was delayed over 30 minutes due to lightning in the area before finally getting underway. The Raiders had a couple of high-quality scoring opportunities early in the proceedings before more lightning caused another delay under eight minutes into the match.

This lengthier delay also saw a downpour of rain, but the match was eventually able to resume, during which Arcadia dominated.

That win advanced the Raiders to the regional finals two days later, where the second-seeded Aquinas Blugolds blanked Arcadia 2-0 in La Crosse.

Stats and scoring information from Arcadia’s two regional matches were not made available at the time of publication.