For 71 minutes Monday afternoon, two contenders for the Class A girls crown played nearly even soccer.
It was the other nine minutes that separated Omaha Marian.
The Crusaders scored four goals in less than nine minutes in the second half, beating Omaha Westside 4-0 at Phelps Field in the season opener for both teams.
“We just tried to battle a little, play to feet and mix it up,” Marian coach Ed Dudley said of what changed during his team's post-halftime success. “We were able to get a couple.”
Midfielder Margaret Powers scored the first and the last goals of the flurry, with long strikes from teammates Jackie Tondl and Ellen McCormick in between.
“Sometimes when it rains it pours,” Westside coach Nathan Moseley said. “You look at the first 55 minutes, we played pretty even. It's just one of those things that happens. You have a breakdown here and there and it really costs you.”
Powers' first score came just less than 17 minutes into the second half when the senior cleaned up a rebound after Warrior keeper Kourtney Woracek and a Marian player collided in the air going for a bouncing ball near the top of the box. Powers settled it, took a dribble and buried the only score the Crusaders would need into the back of the net.
Their next goal would come five minutes later, the first of three in just more than four minutes.
“You get one and that helps,” Dudley said.
Tondl's free kick from 35 yards out got a little aid from the wind in getting over the head of Woracek to put Marian up 2-0.
McCormick ran down another bouncing ball ahead of traffic and went low with a shot from outside the box for the next score before Powers put a bow on things with a punch shot from deep that went through the fingertips of Woracek and dribbled in.
“We've got a lot of speed,” Dudley said. “Obviously the wind helped (in the second half). We passed it up there and were able to run two or three down.”
Things don't get much easier for Westside, which goes to Millard North another top team in Class A on Thursday.
“One of the things I told the girls is that it's better to learn some of these things in the first game rather than the last one,” said Moseley, who is in his first year with the Warriors, replacing Don Gilpin after 33 years at the school.
Om. Marian (1-0).............0 4 — 4
At Om. Westside (0-1)...................0 0 — 0
Goals: OM, Powers 2, Tondl, E. McCormick.
Contact the writer:
850-0781, nickrubek@hotmail.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
RSS Feeds