Quick start lifts Bulldogs past Cavs

CELINA - After a tough loss to Wapakoneta earlier in the week, Celina girls soccer team hoped to clear up things on Saturday in playing Coldwater in a battle between Mercer County squads.

The Bulldogs scored their first goal 11 minutes into the match and cruised to a 5-0 win over the Cavaliers at the soccer stadium to improve to 8-5-1 on the season. The Cavaliers fall to 7-7-1.  

"We played a good defensive game today," said Celina coach Eric Gerker. "I thought the overall flow of the game was pretty sloppy. The rock-hard field might have had something to do with it. After the first couple goals, we were able to settle in after that."

Celina had an early shot go off the pipes of the goal and Cavalier keeper Sydney Grieshop made a couple of saves before Kira Dirksen got the scoring underway off an assist from Jacci Felver. Dirksen got past Grieshop, who slipped trying to angle Dirksen away from the net, and scored with 29:21 to play in the first half.

The second game came 11 minutes later. Dirksen took the corner kick and put it right into the heart of the box. Taylor Klingshirn leaped up and headed the goal into the back of the net at 18:27. Klingshirn got her second goal of the match nine minutes later on an a break, putting the ball away at 9:11. The final goal of the half came with 14 seconds remaining as Raven Harris scored off a pass from Kenlee Holstad to make it 4-0 at the half.

"You could watch last year's game (an 8-0 Celina win), it was exactly the same," said Coldwater coach Paul Dingledine about the first half. "As soon as we gave up the first goal (last year), we fell apart. … We challenged them at halftime to step it up."

The final goal of the match came with just over eight minutes gone in the half as Isabella Duenas scored off a Klingshirn pass. After that, both teams locked down the defense.

Celina's defense remained sharp as Riley Seitz faced just one shot in her time in goal before giving way to backup Isabel Maxwell for the remainder of the match.

"That was the focus going in," Gerker said of the defense. "We had a couple of defenisve breakdowns against Wapakoneta (a 1-0 Wapak win) that we had to clean up. We got out here early, did a walkthrough (emphasizing) the mistakes. We played a solid defensive game."

"It would have been nice to keep it at 4-0, but they got that last one in," said Dingledine. "They were peppering us (Celina outshot Coldwater 12-1), but we withstood it. That's good for the future to know what that's like."

Celina is back in action on Tuesday, hosting the Grand Lake Derby with St. Marys. Coldwater wraps up its regular season on Tuesday, traveling to Ottoville.