GREENFIELD — It took the majority of the first half, but New Palestine was the first to score in Wednesday’s Hoosier Heritage Conference girls soccer matchup against Greenfield-Central.
Before the Cougars had a chance to recover, the Dragons scored again.
The Dragons added an early one in the second half, too, to take all the steam out of the host Cougars in an eventual 3-1 win at the G-C Soccer Complex.
The Dragons are 6-3-1 overall and have improved to 4-0 in the HHC. Greenfield-Central dropped to 3-6 and 2-3 in the conference.
“We did a great job of pressuring them and winning the ball,” New Palestine coach Erin Clark said. “When we won it, we kept it and moved off the ball. We’ve really been focusing the last month on just making easy passes. Everybody did that tonight, made an easy pass, not trying to be the star, just trying to get everybody to make an easy pass.”
New Palestine junior Tylar Whitaker was the recipient of a lot of those easy passes.
She had the second hat trick of her high school career, scoring her seventh, eighth and ninth goals of the season. She also had a hat trick in the first game of her sophomore season, Aug. 16, 2022, a 5-1 victory over Pike.
“Since our Mt. Vernon game (an overtime victory last week) and this game, we’ve been working on possession and making the simple passes. I think that worked out tonight, especially in the midfield,” Whitaker said.
“My teammates had a (lot) to do with (the hat trick), too,” she added. “Their passes, Rylee Hurst’s pass to me on my second goal was amazing. I can’t get over that. I wouldn’t have been put in that position if my teammates weren’t there.”
Hurst assisted the second goal. Nevaeh Gebhart had assists on the other two.
The first goal came with just 11:34 remaining in the first half. The second game 94 seconds later right at the 10:00 mark.
“We played with a lot of grit for the first 25-30 minutes,” Greenfield-Central coach Brandon Steeno said. “That first goal was kind of a microcosm of what we had talked about the last two days. We had a memory lapse and they got the first one. I think that took a lot of wind out of our sails … The second one was an extension of the first one.”
“The second one was huge,” Clark added. “When you can score back-t0-back like that it definitely knocks the other team down a little. The second goal was huge. But even at halftime up 2-0, we knew they weren’t going to come out and lay on the ground and they didn’t. They played hard.”
The Cougars were looking for an early second-half goal to get back in it and the Dragons were looking for the same, but to put the game away.
Again, it was Whitaker. Just under four minutes into the second period (36:02), she hit the underneath portion of the crossbar and got a nice bounce into the back of the goal for a 3-0 New Palestine lead.
“We knew they were going to come out hard in the second half,” Clark said. “We know they’re a good team with good coaches. To put a goal away immediately helped end their hopes.”
“I thought if we could get a quick one coming out in the second half we’d be OK, but they got a quick one and made it even tougher,” Steeno said.
With just 3:50 remaining in the match, Greenfield-Central got a goal from junior forward Alyssa Deckard.
“I felt like we controlled possession,” Clark added. “We had a ton of chances and Tylar Whitaker … she was playing awesome tonight. We had a lot of good chances, played well, and had lots of good teamwork.”
Greenfield-Central is back in action Saturday for its annual Kickin’ Cancer event. The Cougars will play Batesville, beginning with a junior varsity match at 1:30 p.m.
New Palestine plays host to Class 3A No. 10 Cathedral at 1o a.m., Saturday.
