One is Enough

ST. MARYS - Even though St. Marys held the ball for most of the first half, the Roughriders were struggling to generate chances.

It wasn't until late in the first half that St. Marys broke through, and the one goal held up as the Roughriders played keep-away to close out a 1-0 victory over Kenton in a Western Buckeye League girls soccer match at Roughrider Field on Monday.

"We knew it was going to take a full 80 minutes, and it did," St. Marys coach Nick Wilson said. "This was probably our most complete game, year to date. Now it's a matter of getting some momentum into the postseason."

Outside of a four-minute stretch around 10 minutes into the game, St. Marys (6-5, 4-2 WBL) kept up the pressure throughout the first 40 minutes. But the Roughriders didn't get a shot on goal until Kendall Dieringer directed a shot on point with 18:38 left in the first half.

The lone score came with 3:39 left before halftime after Dieringer launched a free kick right at Kenton keeper Ruby Styer, who bobbled it out of her hands and off a Wildcats defender. Aerial Fast came flying in to fire the ball into the top of the net and put the Roughriders ahead.

"It was just a much better final pass to put Aerial in position there," Wilson said.

As St. Marys continued to hold the ball without adding on, Kenton (4-7-1, 1-4-1 WBL) became more desperate with time ticking down. The Wildcats took two shots on keeper Ella Jacobs in the second half, both with less than eight minutes to go, and missed a slew of others.

Their best chance came with 22:35 remaining, when Jacobs charged the ball and couldn't corral it, giving Addy Modd a shot from the right corner of the box on an open goal. But Modd pushed the ball left and the Roughriders took over.

St. Marys had missed opportunities of its own, including when three attackers converged in the box and all failed to take a shot. Later in the game, Fast got in the way of a kick by Styer that went flying back towards the goal, only for Styer to chase it down before it could cross the line.

But most of the Roughriders' chances were far from optimal, leaving them to grind out the win.

"We were missing the last pass," Wilson said. "We've really worked on possession - we don't have the super-speed that we've had in years past, so we've had to become a possession team. We've been plugging pieces in and seeing who can do what where, and really the first half was everything that we knew that they could do as far as possessing the ball and moving it through. That last pass, to get us into a little more opportune scoring position, was all that we were missing."

Kenton also challenged St. Marys with physical defense, drawing a number of whistles and jeers from the crowd. After the third whistle on the Wildcats' Emily Pees late in the first half, fans started calling for a card or ejection, which led to a stoppage in play as the referee warned the crowd and the students in particular not to yell at individual players.

A minute later, the announcer issued a similar warning, and there were no other reprimands even though the game continued to be physical in the second half. If anything, Kenton's aggressiveness led to a response in kind from St. Marys, which brought an edge to its defense as the clock wound down.

"Anyone that doesn't think that soccer is a physical game is crazy," Wilson said. "It's incredibly physical. They always catch whoever retaliates, so we try to be strong and keep it clean. I think as the fouls mounted, it gets harder and harder to maintain your composure. I'm proud of how we fought, and I think we kept it as clean as we could."

Jacobs earned her second shutout of the year, finishing with five saves.

St. Marys moves to 4-1 at home with the win and will play three of its final five games at Roughrider Field. The Roughriders get one of the road games out of the way on Thursday with a trip to Elida.