Columbus North’s Maddi Rutan and Columbus East’s Allison Craig battle for the ball during a match at BCSC Soccer Complex in Columbus.
Tommy Walker/For The Republic
Ten months after being tied through regulation and overtime in an epic sectional final girls soccer battle, Columbus East and Columbus North found themselves in another deadlock on Wednesday night.
This time, the stakes were much smaller than that meeting, which the Bull Dogs won on penalty kicks, when the two teams played to a scoreless draw in the regular-season matchup between the crosstown rivals.
“Especially whenever you’re going up against a senior-laden team, 13 seniors, 11 juniors, and we have playing on a regular basis six or seven freshmen and sophomores, I will absolutely take a 0-0 draw,” North coach David Young said. “We got outshot tonight, but we had chances the second half. We changed things up at halftime and had chances, not much on frame.”
The Olympians (1-1-2) outshot the Bull Dogs (2-1-2) 12-3 and put five shots on goal to just one for North.
“I thought we attacked really well,” East coach Ilya Schwartzman said. “We did have the majority of the possession. We worked the ball well. Our front line played well. We just couldn’t get it in the back of the net. I thought their goalie had a very solid game. She made no mistakes at all, and I guess that’s what’s expected from an All-State goalie.”
Mallory Gilley recorded five saves for North. The biggest one came when she tipped a free kick from East’s Norah Dwenger off the crossbar in the 31st minute.
The only other time either team came close to scoring came a minute later when an Olympians goal was disallowed because of a hand-ball.
“There was only one that was dangerous for Mal, lots of balls dumped into the box, and Mal is fantastic coming off her line,” Young said. “We knew what we were going to expect them to do, we worked on it throughout the week and the girls were ready.”
Anna Liimatta posted one save for East.
“They have excellent players up front, and I thought our defense did a great job shutting them down,” Schwartzman said. “I thought we defended well and worked it out of the defense pretty well.”
