If the Columbus East girls soccer team had any doubts it could play with a top-10 team in the state, those went by the wayside in the first 30 seconds of Wednesday night’s game against Columbus North.
Maya Federle scored on a rebound shot just 25 seconds into the game, and the Olympians went on to claim a 4-3 upset of the Class 3A No. 9 Bull Dogs.
“I think that energy really helped,” Federle said. “I think after that, we were all pumped and ready to go. We knew that we could do it.”
East’s Sarah Park took the opening kickoff and drove in and put a shot off the left post. Her rebound shot was blocked by North goalkeeper Kaylyn Bates, but the ball squirted to the right side of the goal, where Federle was there for the tap-in.
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Less than five minutes later, the Olympians (3-1) made it 2-0 when Alana Dwenger took a pass from Emily Stiles and scored.
The Bull Dogs (3-1) cut the lead in half on a goal by Jenna Lang in the ninth minute. But Dwenger made the score 3-1 at halftime after scoring off a pass from Jaeda Berkemeier in the 36th minute.
“It was my teammates who played me the ball, and it was just perfect,” Dwenger said of her two goals.
East extended the lead to 4-1 when Berkemeier scored in the 52nd minute. But after that, the Olympians had to hang on.
North’s Tanner Johnson scored off a cross from KJ Ely in the 71st minute to cut the lead to 4-2. The Bull Dogs pulled to within one on a penalty kick by Lang in the 79th minute, but East was able to run out the clock.
“It was a fantastic start,” East coach Ilya Schwartzman said. “The girls were ready mentally, and they wanted this one. The way they came out, you can’t start the game any better than this.”
North outshot the Olympians 22-14. The Bull Dogs put 13 shots on goal to East’s 10.
“We were a little flat, obviously, and just didn’t play well all the way around,” North coach Derek Stewart said. “We were mis-kicking, we weren’t connecting passes. It just wasn’t our night tonight.”
Karisma Parker recorded 10 saves for the Olympians. Bates finished with six saves for North.
East put 10 of its 14 shots on goal.
“I thought we did a really good job with playing our game,” Schwartzman said. “We isolated some really good opportunities and were able to execute them. Defensively, we did a good job. We made a couple mistakes, but overall, it was a very good, solid effort.”
The win over the Bull Dogs was the first for the Olympians since the 2015 sectional.
“My sister (Emma) wasn’t able to do it when she was in high school, and she’s been yelling at me to do it,” Alana Dwenger said. “I’m just glad we played as a team and were really positive and finished well.”
