The Marion boys soccer team took advantage of two penalties in the first 15 minutes to grab an early lead and beat Clear Creek Amana, 3-2, Tuesday at Marion.

“Overall, we did a pretty good job of working the ball around and getting it to players,” said Marion senior Steen Irish. “It was a rough game, just get by with a win.”

The Indians, ranked No. 12 in Class 2A, were going into the wind in the first half, but that didn’t stop them from dominating the play.

“We were moving the ball, taking long shots and crashing the goal,” said co-head coach Tom Schulte. “Our defense was good, we were switching fields, everything we tell them to do, that’s what they were doing.”

The Indians' first goal came on a beautiful shot off of a direct kick from Irish from just outside the penalty box in the sixth minute.

“He told me he had been practicing those outside of the foot shots and the goalie didn’t see it coming,” Schulte said. “It was a great hit, that’s all you can ask for, especially against the wind.”

The Indians (9-1, 7-1 Wamac) didn’t let up, scoring on a penalty kick just seven minutes later, and scored again in the 32nd minute when Adam Jones got the ball deep in the box on a pass from Markus Newton and fired it into the back of the net.

Marion looked to have the game well in hand at that point, but Clear Creek Amana (8-3, 5-3) crept back into the game.

Just seconds before halftime, Austin Mussing of Clear Creek Amana snuck into the box and took the ball and had a wide open shot on goal. The shot just barely reached the back of the net before the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the half.

That late goal seemed to wake up Clear Creek Amana in the second half.

“In the second half we started to get back on out heels," Schulte said. “They were attacking us and we started jumping in on balls and missing them. We really just let them back into the game and we shouldn’t have.”

Clear Creek Amana’s chances picked up in the second half and they managed to punch in another goal in the 72nd minute, pulling back to within one goal, but couldn’t punch in another one, and Marion came away with the win.

The Indians were missing several starters on Tuesday, including the injured Stratton West, Nick Rael, who was sick, and Ryan Hagen, who received a red card in overtime against Waterloo Columbus on Friday and had to sit out one game.

“We have a couple players out which kind of hurt us because we are kind of low on the bench, but we have people that can fill it in,” Irish said.

The Indians suffered their first setback of the season Friday, losing in a shootout to Waterloo Columbus, and were intent on coming out strong and getting back on track on Tuesday.

“We just had to bounce back,” Irish said. “We didn’t want to lose these games because we want to get a better record than we had last year and we want to go to state since Marion has never been there."