Let it reign

ELIDA - It literally rained on Celina's parade Saturday. 

The Bulldog girls soccer team didn't mind, though. 

After all, they were already soaked from the previous 80 minutes of soccer and overcome with elation after defeating Bath 1-0 in the Division II district championship game. 

With 33 minutes left in the second half, Carley Eichler assisted Taylor Klingshirn for the lone goal as Celina overcame the elements to defeat  Bath for a second time this season. 

"I think the seniors were in the regionals as freshmen, but most of our team is young, so this is a great accomplishment," Celina coach Eric Gerker said. "I'm so proud of the girls for how they worked through this. They've been a pleasure to coach all year. We've had our ups and downs, but I'll tell you what, they're making it all worthwhile. They're going to enjoy this, and we get another game out of it."   

Celina (14-2-3) advances to the regiona semifinals for the first time since 2015 on Tuesday at Findlay's Elmer Graham Stadium at 7 p.m. against Oak Harbor. The Rockets (14-4-1), the top seed of the Lake District, defeated Toledo Central Catholic 3-2 in double overtime to advance. 

The first Celina-Bath meeting was stopped by weather with the Bulldogs leading 2-1 in the second half. A win was awarded to Celina, too, despite the teams not continuing play after Mother Nature intervened. Nasty weather conditions, however, were not stopping the teams meeting Saturday. Not with the quick turnaround for regional. 

The game featured a lot of slipping and sliding, resulting in several grass-stained uniforms which should make for a challenging laundry day. 

Celina keeper Kennedy Henry stopped three shots in the opening half and five for the game. Playing into the wind to start the game, top-seeded Celina had just one shot on goal against third-seeded Bath in the first half. Three minutes into the second half, the Bulldogs raised their shot-on-target total to three. They also had three straight corner-kick opportunities. 

The scoreboard was finally dented with just over 33 minutes remaining, when Eichler got in the goal box and touched a pass to Klingshirn, who slid a one-timer past Bath goalie Kyla Bailey. 

"I think the ball was fed in on the outside on the left and into the middle," Gerker said. "Fortunately we had a couple girls there. Taylor was in the right place at the right time.

"Whatever team had the wind had the big advantage," he added. "We were just trying to survive the first half. They had some looks in the first half. We made some adjustments in the second half. We started spreading them out and attacking the corners. We started attacking the left side, which we didn't really do in the first half."