GOSHEN - Despite the full moon, nothing out of the ordinary happened at the Bethany Christian Sectional Tuesday.
As they've done all season, the Wawasee Warriors girls soccer team posted a convincing win, moving to the second round of sectional play with a 5-0 victory over the Lakeland Lakers."This is about what we thought the score may be like," Wawasee coach Dodd Cunningham said, citing his team's 6-0 win over Lakeland back on Aug. 19.
"But when you're playing a team twice, you never know what's going to happen," he added.
The similarities between the season-opening win and the latest are hard to dismiss.
Outside of the score, Wawasee had 17 shots on goal to Lakeland's one in the sectional game, a stat that went 18-0 in August. In the goal, Lakeland junior Shelby Heller had 11 saves Tuesday, after recording 12 the first time around. As far as corner kicks go, Wawasee attempted nine to Lakeland's zero in both matches.
A difference between the two matches was the significance of the result. Wawasee now moves on to face West Noble Thursday at 7 p.m., while Lakeland goes home.
West Noble is in the semifinals after ousting Central Noble 3-0 Tuesday, but against Wawasee, the West Noble Chargers are facing a team that defeated them 7-1 on Aug. 21.
"It's kind of the same thing as Lakeland," Cunningham said about facing another squad his girls have already beaten convincingly this season. "We will come in knowing that anything can happen, and we'll need to be ready to play."
In their first shot at defending their Bethany Christian Sectional title, an honor they've taken the past two years, the Warriors dominated the Lakers.
On the night, Lakeland's only shot on goal came about 30 seconds after the opening kick. From there on out, Lakeland never got anything going.
"Our defense has been strong all year," Cunningham said. "We've had some goals scored against us, but overall, it's been strong."
Helping that defense was a strong offense that was kick-started by a goal from senior Kylee Ort five minutes into the match. Ort went on to score two more goals in the second half, giving her the hat trick.
"Kylee Ort is a player that can do almost anything on the field," Cunningham said of Ort, who became the Wawasee goalkeeper with eight minutes to play. "I try to reel her in sometimes, but I've learned to not waste my breath. The rest of the girls adjust to where she is, because she can create anywhere on the field."
Accompanying Ort in the scoring column were senior Brennan McAdams and freshman Mallory Rondeau.
Despite winning the match 5-0, Cunningham wasn't too exuberant. The 2-0 Wawasee lead at the half was one he would have liked to have seen a little more lopsided.
"The play was not where we wanted it to be," he said about the first half.
"We talked about possession," he added. "In the second half, we began building a build-up to an attack, instead of launching the ball from 40 yards out."
With a win Thursday, Wawasee would face the winner of the 5 p.m. semifinal between Westview and NorthWood in the Saturday championship.
