T-Birds fly past Jeffcats 3-1

Published:  Wednesday, October 1, 2008 (3 months, 1 week ago)
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By MICHAEL WRASMAN
The Delphos Herald

DELPHOS — The Lima Central Catholic Lady Thunderbirds downed the Lady Wildcats of Jefferson 3-1 in a Northwest Conference encounter on a wet St. John’s Annex soccer pitch Monday afternoon.
The contest was scoreless, thanks in large part to the efforts of Red and White junior goaltender Jessica Bland, who saved 12 LCC first-half attempts, before LCC senior forward Lexi Brown got one past the Lady Wildcat netminder. Bland had just saved a shot by T-Bird freshman defender Sarah Hoffman 13:30 before halftime but the ball trickled out of her hands on the wet surface. Brown was there to put the ball past Bland into the netting at the 13:27 mark of the first to give the Lady Thunderbirds a 1-0 advantage at the halftime intermission.
“Jessica has been pretty consistent,” Jefferson coach Sara Stearns noted. “She kept us in the game. When you get shot on 40 times, some will sneak in. In the first half, we had to get used to the wet ground. That was a new environment. It hasn’t rained in three months.”
After twice being repelled by Bland, the third time was a charm for Thunderbird freshman midfielder Kelly Ahman, who got one past Bland at the 37:25 mark of the second half.
Then it was a long time between goals, as Bland saved eight Lady Thunderbird shots and LCC goalkeeper Kelly Mulcahy saved three Jefferson attempts.
Freshman midfielder Meagan France got her name into the scorebook as she scored for the Allen County visitors at the 16:12 mark.
Then it was time for the two netminders to shine again; Bland saved six more Thunderbird attempts, with Mulcahy getting two saves off Jefferson attempts.
The Lady Wildcats got into the scoring column when freshman midfielder/forward Elizabeth Schosker (three shots) scored a goal from the right side, getting behind the Lady Thunderbird defense with just 35 ticks remaining in the contest.
“We got one back,” Stearns commented.
But Jefferson would not get another shot-on-goal, as the LCC defense played keepaway.
The Lady Wildcats took just five second-half shots, as most of the 40 minutes was played on the LCC end of the pitch. Bland had 16 second-half saves versus 23 shots.
Junior midfielder Megan Moreo attempted eight shots-on-goal for the Jefferson squad. Mulcahy had 14 saves for the Lady T-Birds; Jefferson totaled 25 shots-on-goal.
“It was a good thing the girls kept on fighting,” Stearns offered. “We’ll go to practice this afternoon and work on things that we need to work on.”
The Lady Wildcats slip to 2-10 (1-3 in the Northwest Conference) and travel to Bluffton Thursday for a 7 p.m. NWC contest with the Lady Pirates.
LCC improves to 4-6-3 (3-1 in the NWC) and will make the return trip to Delphos to do battle with their long-time rivals, the Lady Blue Jays of St. John’s, in a non-conference encounter on the St. John’s Annex sod at 1 p.m. Saturday.

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