Bull Dogs bounce Shamrocks

It was a deadlock for the first 25 minutes of Thursday’s boys soccer game between Columbus North and Westfield.

In the 25th minute, the Bull Dogs finally got the breakthrough they needed.

Graham Keele made the perfect to cross from the left side of the field to an open Sotaro Kaneda, who finished the play. That gave North all the momentum to cruise to a 4-1 win over Westfield.

“We’ve been playing really well, even though we were unfortunate at Bloomington South,” North coach Tom Pollert said. “We just kind of stayed with what we’ve been doing, and we really didn’t change anything. We just gave the ball to Graham, and he was explosive tonight.”

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Two minutes after the Bull Dogs (6-7-1) got the first goal, Keele dribbled the ball close to the end line on the left side. With a very tight window, his shot attempt was perfect, and North doubled its lead to 2-0.

“The coaching staff knew that the left back was going to be weak, so we isolated Graham up against him,” Pollert said. “Fortunate for us, he couldn’t handle Graham, and Graham took advantage of him.”

Keele added his second goal of the match just before the first half ended. His shot from left side found nothing but the net to give the Bull Dogs a 3-0 lead in the 37th minute.

Early in the second half, in the 46th minute, Ernesto Perez added a goal to extend the North advantage to 4-0.

In the closing seconds of the match, the Shamrocks were awarded a penalty kick. However, the shot bounced off of the goalkeeper but the rebound went to Brady Drlik, who prevented the shutout by netting a goal.

Pollert praised the goalkeeping of starter Noah Kestler, who made several big saves for the Bull Dogs in the first half.

“Noah has been playing phenomenal right now,” Pollert said. “We gave up a lot of goals early in the season and we had a lot of young guys playing. We have a good rotation now, and everyone is comfortable with Noah and Noah is comfortable with his role. He seems to get better and better with every practice and every game."