By Gary R. Rasberry
grasberry@dailystandard.com It wasn't a loss for Celina, but the result still did not sit well.
The Bulldogs girls soccer team had a 3-1 lead going into the final 20 minutes of Saturday afternoon's game with Greenville. The Green Wave, however, scored twice in the final 20 minutes to salvage a 3-all tie at Celina Soccer Stadium.
Both teams see their records improve to 0-3-1 with the tie.
Celina had plenty of opportunities to score, but it looked like the game was sewn up with 221/2 minutes left to play when Shay Adams scored on a breakaway to put Celina up two.
Whether Celina put it in cruise the rest of the way or the Wave caught a second wind, a span of seven minutes late in the second half turned Celina's chances for a first win into a struggle just to keep the tie. Nikki Greendyke got the Wave to within one with 19:29 left in the game with a breakaway past the defense and a kick past keeper Laura Kuhn.
After each team had a couple of chances to score, the Wave got a big chance as Whitney Warvel got past the defense and scored her second goal of the day to tie things up.
"We put them in position to tie the game," said Celina head coach Dean Liggett. "I don't know if we got a little flat after going up 3-1. (Greenville) kept their intensity up and kept playing hard. They took advantage of our mistakes. That was their (method of operation) coming in. We talked to other teams and they said Greenville had good speed up top and take advantage of defensive breakdowns. ... All three of their goals came in close on balls that good players are going to put away."
Greenville kept the pace up in the final 12 minutes as Celina tried to move the ball into the Wave zone. Celina had several good looks but backup keeper Emily Melling -- who replaced starter Dana Smith after Smith was inadvertently struck in the head but was able to leave unassisted -- made two great saves on shots.
In the final 90 seconds of the game, Greenville tried to turn things up. Severval shots went wide and another made it into the hands of Kuhn for the save. Celina got the ball downfield and had one chance to score but the attempts was blocked. A final corner kick with the clock under 10 seconds went wide of the goal. Celina tried to recover the ball but the officials whistled the game complete with the tie.
Celina had plenty of looks at the Wave goal, unofficially taking 25 shots on goal to Greenville's 12. Smith and Melling were able to combine on eight saves in the goal.
"We missed a lot of scoring opportunities," said Liggett. "There was one with the (Wave) keeper on the ground. We had times where we should have taken the shot and we didn't and we hurried a shot when we should have dribbled in five feet closer. I'm not complaining about the number of shots we had, we just missed opportunties."
Celina's first goal came just over a minute into the game when Meg Smalley got the breakaway and scored from 10 feet. Greenville countered just two minutes later when Warvel had her first goal when she broke away from the defense to put the ball past Kuhn.
It looked like Celina got over the pressure and took a 2-1 lead into the half when Lindsay Miller stole a pass and weaved her way past the Wave defense for a goal with 11 minutes left to go in the opening half.
Celina will look to get win number one on the season when Kenton comes to town tonight for a Western Buckeye League match. |
