It was a tale of two halves at David Green Field Tuesday night.
On a hot, muggy evening, visiting Center Grove and host Columbus North played an evenly matched first half of soccer. As the sun set and the temperature cooled, however, the Trojans heated up, outscoring the Bull Dogs 4-1 in the second half, on their way to a 5-2 victory.
“In the first half, we played our game plan to perfection and played them evenly. In the second half, they took it to another level,” North coach Tom Pollert said. “They are a top-10 program. They are where we want to be. They picked up their speed, intensity, everything.”
The Bull Dogs (0-4) opened the scoring in the 24th minute. After a Center Grove foul, Andrew Goble took a free kick from near mid field, sending it to the center of the goal. From there, Graham Keele did the rest, as he was able to wrestle the ball away from the Trojan defense and sneak the ball into the right side of the net, giving North a 1-0 lead.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
The visitors were able to answer the North score with a goal of their own eight minutes later. On their fifth corner kick of the first half, Carter Zuch sent a cross toward the net that Bull Dog goal keeper Noah Kestler seemed to have a bead on. The ball, however, slipped through Kestler’s fingertips, and Center Grove’s Owen Assenmacher was there to punch it in, evening the score at 1-1 heading into halftime.
Much like the first half, it was North who struck first in the second half. A foul in the box by the Trojans set the Bull Dogs up with a penalty kick in the 51st minute.
Keele took full advantage, scoring his second goal of the game to give them their second lead of the evening at 2-1. And much like the first half, the Trojans answered right back two minutes later with a penalty kick conversion of their own off of the foot of Jack Neal to tie the score at 2-2.
From there, Center Grove absolutely took over, scoring three more unanswered goals in the span of 4:44.
Following his penalty kick conversion, Neal found the net again less than two minutes later to give the Trojans their first lead of the night at 3-2. Two minutes later, it was Jacob Youngstafel who added to the Trojans’ total with a goal of his own, making it 4-2 in the 57th minute. Just 23 seconds later, Center Grove scored yet again, their fourth straight, when Nick Shirer found the goal.
“This was another learning experience for us. We are a young team. We are going to take our lumps. We play a tough schedule. We are not too concerned at this point with the outcome. Of course, we want to be successful. But we want to be playing well at the end of the season too,” Pollert said.
