There were more than mosquitoes biting Tuesday at the City-County Athletic Complex, as the Warsaw girls soccer team took a bite out of the Elkhart Memorial Crimson Chargers.
Thanks to good spacing and defense, the Tigers had little trouble with their NLC foe, winning 6-0."They were able to spread the field a lot better than we were," Memorial coach Dan Sullivan said. "Basically, their passes were spot on. Their girls turned to receive a pass and there was someone there. On the flip side, we had a tendency to kind of panic when we had the ball."
And that spacing is exactly what Warsaw coach Mike Getz wanted going into the contest.
"We thought we could beat them wide," Getz said. "Early in the game, we got a couple goals wide, then all of a sudden we kept going up the middle. We kept telling them to spread out the game. Once they did that we could go up the middle again."
Warsaw's first goal actually came when junior Janelle Sproul netted a ball following an outside miss by sophomore Emily Hickerson 26 seconds into the match. While Sproul was able to convert that Hickerson miss, the sophomore wouldn't miss too many more times. On the night, Hickerson pulled the hat trick, scoring three goals.
"Emily is a girl that is yet to really realize how good she is," Getz said. "She's a sophomore, she's exceptionally fast and good with the ball. Tonight what I was happy with was, she's such an exceptional player that a lot of the time, she's giving up the ball when she should be going to the goal. Tonight, she got it in her mind to go to the goal and get those opportunities. We need a goal scorer, someone with that personality."
And Hickerson's offense will be greeted with open arms, as the Warsaw defense has been doing its job in past matches, while the scoring has been slow to catch up.
"In the last three games, we've only given up a goal or two," Getz said. "So our defense has been carrying us, but we haven't scored a lot of goals. So tonight, we were really trying to emphasize, 'We've gotta get to the goal and create some more offense'."
Along with Hickerson and Sproul's goals, Warsaw junior Bekah Kolbe also had a nifty score at the 28:56 mark in the first half. After taking the ball just in front of midfield, Kolbe dribbled it in-between Charger defenders, until she found herself inside the 18. From there, she simply put a boot on the ball.
"They control the center of the field - between the goal posts and the 18 - and if you do that, you're gonna control the game," Sullivan said.
Tigers sophomore Brittany Enyeart put an end to the scoring with 22:19 remaining, netting a rebounded ball, leading to the even more lopsided score.
So by scoring six runs, as well as getting a shutout, Warsaw got the best of both worlds against Memorial.
"We put together a lot of good offense tonight," Getz said. "And yet, we still got the shutout, so that's gonna help us in the close matches. If we can get the offense geting the goals, the defense is gonna keep us in the game."
WARSAW 6, ELKHART MEMORIAL 0
(scoring)
W - Janelle Sproul (Emily Hickerson assist) 1st min.
W - Hickerson (Bri Myers) 7th min.
W - Bekah Kolbe (unassisted) 12th min.
W - Hickerson (Myers assist) 39th min.
W - Hickerson (unassisted) 52nd min.
W - Brittany Enyeart (Sam Carter) 58th min.
Shots on Goal - Warsaw 19, Memorial 5
Saves - Warsaw (Sarah Larty) 5, Memorial (Amanda Cave) 11
Corner Kicks - Warsaw 6, Memorial 0
Fouls - Warsaw 11, Memorial 9
Records - Warsaw 5-2-1 (2-1 NLC), Memorial 1-4-2 (0-2-1 NLC)
