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COLUMBIA CITY - For two hours, girls on Jay County's soccer team felt every bounce, every pothole as their bus jostled them along to the Columbia City Sectional.
Their trip - one way - lasted two hours.
Their game - with Warsaw - lasted 61 seconds.
Warsaw scored its first goal at the 1:01 mark, the only goal the Tigers would need. Warsaw (12-2-3) made short work of Jay County (1-8-2), beating the Patriots 7-0 in the first round of Tuesday's Columbia City Sectional.
The postseason win is the first in Warsaw's three-year history. Two years ago the Tigers lost to Penn 1-0 in the first round, and last year they lost to Columbia City on a shootout.
One person not surprised by the 7-0 score was Sue Rager, Jay County's coach.
"This is our program's first year," she said. "It went the way I expected it to go. I knew Warsaw had more experience and that their schedule was a little heavier than ours."
Jay County is near the Ohio state line, several miles southeast of Huntington County.
Asked how Jay County ended up in the Columbia City Sectional, Rager said: "I have no idea."
For Sarah Barber, this was all but a day off. Barber is Warsaw's goalkeeper. The most action she saw is when she charged to midfield to celebrate with her teammates after each goal.
Otherwise, she did things like hop up and down to stay warm as the temperatures dipped into the 30s. Warsaw's offense dominated, taking 35 shots on goal to Jay County's 0.
The closest Jay County got to the Warsaw goal was the 12-yard line.
That happened once.
Offensively, the story was Warsaw's Bobbi Wildman. She delivered three goals in Warsaw's last win of the regular season, 4-1 over Goshen.
She did one better against Jay County. She made four goals.
"Bobbi had a good effort," Coach Wildman said. "You could tell she wanted to break her own record of three. She wanted that fourth goal. She should have converted some others."
The Tigers scored in bunches.
Wildman scored Warsaw's first two goals, which came in the first four minutes of the game. After her goals, Warsaw did not score again the first half and led 2-0 at halftime.
Jenna Rooney and Wildman tacked on two more goals the first six minutes of the second half. Mandy Bruggeman added the fifth goal at the 13:32 mark, and Wildman and Ashlee Bouse closed out the scoring with goals in the final nine minutes.
Wildman liked the 7-0 win, but he wasn't all that thrilled watching his team convert only seven of 35 goal shots.
"In the tournament, you have to play at the same level no matter what the team is," Wildman said. "A team that's not experienced, you can't play them to 2-0 or 3-0. You play them to your maximum potential. You do all the things you've trained for all season long. If the score gets out of hand, you do a lot of substitutions.
"As we get to a higher level of play, you get fewer shots on goal. The ones you get, you have to convert. To have 35 shots on goal, we should have converted more goals. We're going to have to."
Now Homestead meets Huntington North at 6 p.m. Thursday, while Warsaw faces Columbia City (9-6-1) in the 8 p.m. game. Columbia City drew the bye.
Warsaw hosted and beat Columbia City 5-1 on Sept. 18.
"We wanted paybacks, whatever you want to call it," Wildman said. "The girls were up to play. We beat them 5-1, but they are not a 5-1 team. They are a better team than that. We have to be prepared for a battle."
