Greenfield-Central’s Chaney Brown and Pendleton Heights’ Olivia Hart battle for possession during their match on Wednesday.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
PENDLETON — Compared to their last league match, game three on the Hoosier Heritage Conference schedule was a complete 180 for Greenfield-Central’s girls soccer team.
After scoring seven goals, exactly a week ago, in a win over Yorktown, the Cougars were shut out on the road by Pendleton Heights 3-0, Wednesday.
According to Greenfield-Central head coach Brandon Steeno, “It really wasn’t our offense. It was our defense that was the issue.”
A big reason for that is injuries and some banged up Cougars players.
Greenfield-Central entered the game with a new look throughout their back four defenders.
Courtney Vaughn, the Cougars senior leader, was out due to an injury suffered earlier in the season against Mt. Vernon. Both Kalyn Moss and Callie Means were either sick or overcoming a recent illness.
Moss played, and Means was on the field for the first time since an emergency room trip after the Mt. Vernon game.
Against the new look Cougar defense, Pendleton Heights struck three times in the opening half, all off of the foot of freshman Lyza Deshong.
All three times, she used her speed to break free from Cougar defenders for one-on-one chances against goalie Jessica Merritt.
“Normally Kalyn would have caught her, but she’s a step slow cause she’s not all the way back right now,” Steeno said.
It was a tale of two halves for the defense though, and after some adjustments made by Steeno they were the ones in control in the second half. The Cougars were able to keep the Arabians off the scoreboard the remainder of the game.
“They played amazing in the second half after we made some adjustments,” Steeno said. “But they just got caught on some breakaways in the first half.”
It was a similar scenario on the offensive side of the ball. The Cougars went without a shot on net in the opening half.
Three corner kicks in the final two minutes of the half all came up empty.
Just like the defense, the Cougars made some offensive adjustments and found themselves with more scoring opportunities in the second half.
“Our first touches in the first half were terrible,” Steeno said. “We talked about some things at half that we needed to fix and we fixed all three. We were down their throats and just couldn’t finish.”
Greenfield-Central had two great looks early in the second. Behind some strong play from freshman Paige McCarley in the midfield, both Chaney Brown and Gladys Rodriguez Trujillo were able to fire off the team’s first two shots on net. But Pendleton Heights goalkeeper Eliza Findlay was able to shut down every chance the Cougars had.
Greenfield-Central remained in control of possession throughout the remainder of the game but just couldn’t find any success against the Arabian defense and Findlay.
Greenfield-Central is 2-3 on the season and 1-2 in conference play. Its next game is another conference match when they travel to Muncie to face off against Delta on Wednesday, Sept. 7.
