Patriots repeat as OAC champs (09/26/03)

MUNCIE — Muncie Southside’s Rebels took to the field Thursday to try to deny the Jay County girls soccer team in the conference finale. Well, they were on half the field anyway.

The Patriots kept the ball almost entirely on their offensive end as they won their second consecutive Olympic Athletic Conference title with a 4-0 victory over Southside.

“I guess it hasn’t sunk in,” said Sue Rager, the only coach Jay County has ever had in its seven-year history of girls soccer. “It’s awesome. When we first started out in the Olympic Conference we were always the underdog. We usually came in last or second to last.

“Times have changed. We have become the dominant team in the last several years.”

The dominant Patriots had almost no doubt that they’d come away with a conference championship, having already defeated Southside 4-0 in this year’s Muncie Central Invitational. It would have been easy for them to relax in such a situation, but that was not the case.

Instead, they played even better.

Jay County (6-4-1, 4-0 OAC) scored fewer than five minutes into the game, and did not allow Southside to even take a shot on goal.

The first Patriot score came as Jay County controlled a Southside goal kick, after a Jamie Bruggeman shot went wide. Lindsay Friddle flipped a pass to Jessica Heitkamp on the left side, and she easily knocked the ball inside the left post for the 1-0 lead 3:06 into the contest.

Nearly midway through the half the Patriots scored again when Bruggeman sent the ball flying in from the right side. It hopped past Rebel goalie Rhiannon Bonshire and right to Angie Hilgeford on the opposite side of the goal.

Hilgeford chipped it over Bonshire at the 20:54 mark for the 2-0 advantage.

“I didn’t think it was going to come all the way across the goal,” Hilgeford said of her first career goal. “It just went right behind (the defenders).”

Brittany Logue started the third scoring drive for Jay County early in the second half, taking the ball away from Southside on one of its rare trips across midfield. She sent a pass up to Friddle on the right side, who immediately skipped the ball forward to Bruggeman just beyond the center line.

The junior sprinted past the final defender and would not be caught as she blasted a shot past Bonshire from nearly 20 yards away.

Bruggeman led the team with six of its 25 shots on goal. Abby Schmiesing, Hilgeford, Heitkamp and Friddle each had three.

The scoring ended with the same combination who started it, with Heitkamp returning the favor to her senior teammate. Friddle took the pass and put one in the net off the right post for the final margin with 2:16 to play.

“It was frustrating not getting a goal,” said Friddle, who had experienced a long scoring drought after finishing second on the team in the category a year ago. “It was nice to be able to relax and know ‘we’ve got (the title).’ We were able to work on stuff.”

“Winning conference two times in a row was exhilarating,” said Heitkamp, swiping the adjective from senior teammate Sarah Miller.

Jay County’s second straight four-goal game was also its third consecutive shutout.

The back line of Renae Laux, Sarah Dirksen and Lexie Hosier along with stopper Krista Ross stifled any chance the Southside offense had. The only decent Rebel scoring chance came in the closing minutes, but Schmiesing cleared the ball before they could take a shot.

The defense was so good it made for a leisurely life for goalies Beth Siegrist and Sara Garringer. Siegrist touched the ball just once in the first half — she had to call off her teammates to pull off the feat — and Garringer had no touches in the second half.

“It felt good to have another shutout,” said Rager. “It makes those keepers feel really good, and it’s a tribute to the defense.”

And a tribute to the team, which has now won eight games in a row in the OAC.

With the conference season over, the Patriots’ next test comes Tuesday when they visit the rival Blackford Bruins at 4:30 p.m.[[In-content Ad]]