Columbus East controlled most of the possession early on in its Hoosier Hills Conference girls soccer matchup against New Albany.
It was only a matter of time until the Olympians would break through.
Once East got on the board, the goals started coming, and a big defensive effort in the second half led to a 3-0 victory at Richard Wigh Soccer Complex.
After both teams were scoreless the first 25 minutes, the Olympians got on the board when Emily Stiles sent a free kick into the box that took a couple of deflections before Elena Stoughton finished it off for a goal.
“After we settled in after the first few minutes, we did a really good job controlling the game,” East coach Ilya Schwartzman said. “The ball distribution was excellent. We made some really good decisions, and our finishing was very clinical. The second was a bit more even. (New Albany) is a very good team, and had a lot of great runs and kept us on our heels. I thought the girls stepped up. It was a physical game, and I thought we matched up physically very well. The defensive effort was outstanding to get the shutout against a team with only their second loss, and we shut them down pretty good, and that was a good defensive effort.”
In the 33rd minute, Maya Federle was one-on-one with the Bulldog goalkeeper, and her shot deflected off of the keeper and the rebound bounced off of Federle and slowly sailed into the net for a 2-0 Olympian lead.
Shortly before the half, in the 39th minute, Alana Dwenger had a breakthrough and delivered a perfect cross right to an open Federle and her kick went into the net for a 3-0 lead.
“We been working on that a lot and focusing on shifting our point of attack,” Federle said. “Alana was able to make a great run to the top and able to see me between the three defenders that were there, and the ball was just perfect.”
In the second half, East (6-3-2, 4-0-1) was beginning to loosen up and New Albany became much more aggressive. Fortunately for the Olympians, they did not concede a goal and preserved the shutout.
“Defensively, all of the back five and our defensive midfielders did a good job,” Schwartzman said. “Our central midfielders did a good job on (New Albany’s) midfielders. Some of the marking could have been better. In the end, I thought our forwards did a good job coming back and playing defense to help us out marking out their defensive line and pressuring them. I think we did a good job with that, as well.”
The win still leaves the Olympians unbeaten in HHC play.
“We always have high expectations for conference. We expect ourselves to keep up the pace. We know that the teams we’re going to play are going to be increasingly difficult,” Federle said. “We’re definitely expecting a lot more from ourselves in terms of growth between now and the two remaining games (in conference) that we’re going to play and how we come out on the field.”
