WHITELAND — Columbus North junior Jenna Lang made history Thursday night in the girls soccer sectional semifinals against Columbus East.
Lang scored a glut, which is five goals in a game, to bring her season total to 41. That breaks Kayleigh Steigerwalt’s previous school record of 39 and led the Class 3A No. 8 Bull Dogs to a 7-0 victory.
Lang, who also has 10 assists this season, also broke the school record for points in a season with 92.
“I think ultimately, tonight obviously playing with some of my best friends since I was little because I used to play with them, I obviously had that in the back of my mind,” Lang said. “I think it’s just another accomplishment for me, but I always keep working, and it wasn’t just me. It was a team effort, and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates against a good opponent.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
North (15-1-1) now moves on to face Class 3A No. 18 Center Grove in the championship scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at Whiteland’s Break-O-Day Elementary.
“We played them before in these situations, and they’re a great opponent,” Lang said. “I think we’re going to focus on keep getting better every day, and I guess keeping the same mentality as any game. It could be our last game, so we can’t take anything for granted. They’ve built from the first game and so have we, so it could go either way. You just have to respect good teams.”
The Olympians (10-7) did a solid job containing Lang. Eventually, Lang would find a way to get open, and that occurred in the 25th minute when she took a couple touches down the left side. Her shot attempt deflected off an East defender, and the ball changed direction. Olympians goalkeeper Anna Liimatta couldn’t recover, and the ball found the net for a 1-0 lead.
Less than a minute later, the Bull Dogs found the net again. Lauren Barker’s shot from the right side found the far post to extend the lead to 2-0.
In the final minute of the first half, there was a scrum for the ball, and a penalty was called on the Olympians. Lang took the penalty kick, and her shot went inside the left of the post to give North a 3-0 lead at the half.
Lauryn Whitley tacked on another goal for the Bull Dogs off an assist from Lang in the 50th minute to make it 4-0.
Lang then tied the school record off an assist from Alexa McKinley with her 39th goal of the season, then broke the record a few seconds later. Then a couple minutes later, Lang added another off an assist from Whitley for her 41st of the season to make it a 7-0 final.
“I’d like to congratulate East, a 10-6 regular season. They’re a good team, good kids and good coaching staff. They had a good game plan,” North coach David Young said. “It took us a while to break them down, but once we did, we knew that we were going to be able to press a little bit at times.”
Mallory Gilley, who played the first 73 minutes in goal, and Layla Terry, who played the final seven minutes, each recorded two saves in combining for the shutout.
East will be graduating five seniors in Alana Dwenger, Abby Miller, Chloe Miller, Hannah Hemmerlein and Catherine Wolf.
“These five seniors have been awesome, great leadership on and off the field,” East coach Ilya Schwartzman said. “They’re tremendous soccer players, they’re tremendous students. We’re going to miss them a ton. They meant a lot to this program. They helped us build us, and they helped us maintain it. They’re just wonderful. It’ll be tough to replace them.”
The Bull Dogs now look forward to the anticipated rematch with the Trojans, who the Bull Dogs defeated 4-0 in their second game of the season. But Young realizes it likely will be a tougher game this time.
“CG is legit. We’ve seen them the last three or four games. They’re a good team,” Young said. “They’re not the same team that we saw Week 1, nor are we. We both know what’s on the line, and we’ll both going to be ready. It’s going to be a classic game. It’ll be fun.”
