The Columbus East girls soccer team clinched the outright girls soccer Hoosier Hills Conference title by defeating Seymour 1-0 Thursday night at the BCSC Soccer Complex.
“I thought the team did a phenomenal job. Tonight was a real important game for them to bring that conference championship right where it belongs at Columbus East,” East coach Ilya Schwartzman said. “I thought the game was a tough one. Seymour played a very good game. They were aggressive, but we were really tough defensively. We held up when we needed too and created the chances…The whole team really put in the effort. It was a team win, and really, really proud of the group.”
It took a while for the Olympians to get on the board, but they finally broke through in the 72nd minute when Norah Dwenger received a pass forward and took a few dribbles down the right side. She then crossed her defender and went toward the center just outside the box. She finally went for goal when her shot sailed and spun back towards the upper left corner of the far post and out of the reach for Owls goalkeeper Jessica Hougland for the deciding goal.
“We were taking shots all night, and it felt like nothing could go in. You just got to keep shooting and eventually one of those is going to work out,” Dwenger said. “We work on it in practice, so it’s good to see it actually work out in a game.”
In its six HHC games, East (10-5-1, 6-0), didn’t surrender a single goal in the conference and outscored its opponents 27-0 combined.
“I’d like to thank Anna (Liimatta) for that. She’s a great goalie, and our back line is phenomenal,” East senior co-captain Kat Soedel said. “They really helped us with that.”
The Olympians were in a similar position last year when a win against the Owls would have given them the conference title. Seymour pulled off the 1-0 victory that year, but Soedel said it feels great to win the conference title this year.
“It was a good battle. I’m proud of everyone for putting up a fight,” Soedel said. “(Seymour’s) a really good team, but we showed up, we tried our best and we got the results that we wanted. It feels nice.”
East will now take on Whiteland in the semifinals of the Center Grove Sectional at around 7:15 p.m. Thursday.
“Going into that with a great feeling of winning conference and feeling good about it. I think that gives us a ton of confidence going into the postseason,” Schwartzman said. “We’re going to celebrate tonight, we’re going to rest up a little bit, then we’ll go back to work next week. We have some goals there, as well. We have plenty to achieve.”
