North girls knock off Batesville

It did not take much time for Columbus North to break open the scoreboard in Tuesday’s girls soccer game against Batesville.

North picked up two goals in the first half and that was all the cushion it needed.

Despite a little momentum from Batesville in the second half, North managed to come away with a 3-1 victory.

The margin of victory could have been much wider for North. It had plenty of opportunities to add several more goals.

“We wanted to be more aggressive tonight and attack with the top third early,” North coach Derek Stewart said. “They moved the ball well and got some nice opportunities. They were well prepared and came out to play.”

The first goal came in the ninth minute when Kristen Orben’s pass from the right side sailed past a couple of defenders and stopped at the feet of Natalie Teo, who kicked it in to put North (8-2-4) on the scoreboard.

North’s second goal of the first half came when Elise Whitley passed it forward to a speedy Addy Lang, who outran her defenders and goalkeeper Julia Hunter for the ball to finish the play.

The scoring did not end there. In the 47th minute, Orben picked up her second assist of the game when she took a few touches on the right side of the field and delivered another pass across the field to Tanner Johnson, who turned and booted it in the goal.

“The cross wasn’t originally for me, but I cut back really fast because I knew it didn’t go exactly where it was planned, so I adjusted, and it was perfect,” Johnson said.

Momentum then shifted toward Batesville the final 25 minutes of the game. It was able to put pressure on North in the 64th minute when a floating shot went right at the net, but Charlotte Verbanic punched it up and over the crossbar.

On the ensuing corner kick, Batesville ended North’s hopes of a shutout when it finished with a header on the right side of the goal.

“We went into more of a defensive posture as far as a shape we were using,” Stewart said. “We laid back deeper than what we needed to. We were preserving the lead but felt like we fell asleep there a bit towards the end.”