Yorktown blanks Jay County girls (09/21/07)

The Yorktown Tigers took just three more shots on goal than their hosts. But, they played most of the game on their half of the field and were almost always in control.

Yorktown scored less than nine minutes of the game and added a second tally late for a 2-0 high school girls soccer victory over Jay County.

"They were better skilled than we were," said Patriot coach Sue Rager of the Tigers, who are now 8-4 on the season "The better team won tonight."

Jay County got some good luck to avoid falling behind on one early opportunity for the Tigers. A throw-in from the left side six minutes into the game followed by some miscommunication let the ball roll across the front of the goal, but no Yorktown player was there to tap it in.

However, the visiting team cashed in just a few minutes later.

This time starting on the right side, freshman Katie Crump tossed a throw-in to classmate Tess Schlatter. She passed the ball to the front of the goal where the Patriots' Holly Gillette tried to take control. However, Lindsey Dorroh took the ball away from the JCHS sophomore and sent it to the left corner for a 1-0 lead.

The game remained at that score for nearly 60 minutes, and Rager said she felt her team's effort picked up after the intermission.

"The girls in the first half went out very cold," she said after her team dropped to 4-6. "They played, I felt, a really nice second half.

"It was a much better played game the second half."

She also praised Cassandra Huelskamp, Tequila Guntle, Dana Horn and goalie Abby Loy, all of whom were playing the final home game of their careers.

"I really felt that the seniors played some of their best ball tonight," Rager said. "They stepped it up a notch. ... The seniors always give it 100 percent, but especially on senior night they played even harder."

Jay County had a couple of scoring chances early in the second half, including one would-be goal that was erased by an offside call.

That came just three minutes after halftime, when Pazia Speed took control of the ball at the top of the 18-yard box on the left side. She passed in to Brianne Wellman, whose shot got past goalie Crystal Ellis only to be waved off.

Kaelee Keller gave Wellman another feed for a long shot at the 34:26 mark, but Ellis came up with the save and the Tigers controlled the final 30 minutes.

Yorktown's second goal came with 12:30 to play when freshman Mackenzie Moore sent a chip toward the right post. Schlatter rushed and beat Loy to the ball, knocking it in for the 2-0 final.

"All these girls want to put some in the back of the net," said Yorktown coach Joe Griner, who has a starting lineup that includes five freshmen. "They don't give up. They follow all their balls. ... If we take a shot we need to have two girls following, and that's what happened when we got that second goal."

Yorktown finished with 11 shots on goal, including four from Crump. The Patriots had eight shots - two from Dana Horn and one each by Loryn Horn, Keller, Wellman, Huelskamp, Speed and Meagan Logue.

Griner said his team changed its defensive strategy early in the game, keeping one player back to help negate the JCHS speed.

"Jay County has an excellent team," he said. "They have some real fast ladies up top, and they pressured our defense. ... We just played a deep sweep ... We weren't going to give them any room to run. After about the first five or 10 minutes we noticed that was where they were going to get a goal."[[In-content Ad]]