An early goal by Greencastle’s Kennedy Trigg less than six minutes into the game set the tone as the Tiger Cubs blanked North Montgomery 4-0 in the Crawfordsville girls’ soccer sectional semifinal Thursday night.
Junior Sydney Doan lofted a pass over the North Montgomery defense and Trigg outraced the defenders to the ball and buried the shot in the back of the net for her 32nd goal of the year to begin the scoring.
“We have a lot of speed up top, Greencastle coach Scott Monnett said. “That is one of the strengths of this team and we thought we might be able to use it tonight. That early goal allowed us to really press and be aggressive which was our game plan.”
In Tuesday’s 3-1 win it was North Montgomery scoring early and Chargers’ coach Julie Hodges said that quick goal was tough.
“One of the disadvantages of our injury situation was we lost our speed on defense,” Hodges said. “With three or four girls in different position we knew No. 7 had a lot of speed and for the most part we were able to control that but that first goal we just didn’t adjust the way we needed to.”
The Tiger Cubs (12-4-2) continued to apply the pressure in the first half and posted its second goal at the 24:20 mark of the first half as Doan took a free kick following a handball just outside the 18-foot box and nailed it. With time running out in the first half, Daisy Sieg took a pass from Trigg and sent the ball just over the outstretched hands of Kelsey Anderson, who was in goal for the second straight game due to an injury to the Chargers’ starting goal keeper.
The Tiger Cubs had a chance to make it 4-0 right before the half as Neva Brown was awarded a penalty kick, but Anderson made the stop.
In the opening half, Greencastle took 11 shots, nine on goal. They followed that up with seven more shots in the second half and four of those on goal.
The lone goal in the second half came with just 14:24 to play in the game when Trigg scored her second goal on a free kick.
North Montgomery was only able to get three shots, two on goal in the first half, but did manage to add six more in the second half but only two on goal. The Chargers had two chances to score in the first half, one on a corner kick which results in the shot in front of the net going high and then with about 18 minutes in the first half the ball laid right on the goal line but no one was able to push it in. In the second half the half, the Chargers had a penalty kick but could not convert.
With the loss the Chargers ended the season 9-8-1, which comes on the heels of back-to-back 9-7-1 seasons.
“I really wanted to get to that 10th win,” Hodges said. “The great thing is the way this team came together. We lost eight starters from a good team last year and stared off 1-5. Then we reeled off eight wins in the last five weeks or so and came together as a team. We will return 22 of 23 players next year so the outlook for next season is really bright.”