Lady Tigers shut out Fairland, advance in tournament

The McClain varsity girls soccer team opened tournament play and continued their historic season with an impressive 6-0 shutout of Fairland Wednesday night in Greenfield.

It also was the 12th victory of the season for the Lady Tigers, who continue to add to their school record for wins in girls soccer at McClain.

The Lady Tigers dominated the match for the entire 80 minutes of play offensively with the six goals, but defensively too. Senior goalkeeper Kenzie Wise, who has been superb all year, blocked several Lady Dragon shots to preserve the shutout.

“The biggest thing about this win was that I felt like we really dominated the first 20 minutes at the start and had a lot of chances to score,” McClain head coach Blain Bergstrom said. “But then when Lindsey (Hutchinson) scored on the free kick, it seemed to give us a little momentum, and then we put two more in before halftime, so we go up 3-0 at the half.”

A big defensive play in the opening half was when Wise was able to block a shot with just 1:30 showing on the clock to keep Fairland scoreless.

“That was probably the only good chance they had to score in the first half,” Bergstrom said. “I think Kenzie didn’t read it well but was able to re-adjust and knock it down.”

Hutchinson did score the first goal of the game at the 27:43 mark of the opening half on the aforementioned free-kick from a penalty on the Lady Dragons. It wasn’t until late in the first half that the Lady Tigers added the other two scores on goals by Paisley Pryor at the 10:56 mark and Addison Olaker at the 7:15 mark for the 3-0 lead.

McClain came out hot to start the second half and got back-to-back goals by Olaker and Pryor and increased their lead to 5-0 with 35 minutes still to play in regulation.

“I thought our first 15 minutes of the second half was probably some of the best soccer that we’ve played in a long time,” Bergstrom said. “The intensity was there, and our defense was making the plays to get us to the next level, then we were making good passes and having lots of opportunities.

“We really dominated in that first 15 minutes of the second half and probably could have scored a couple more times, but at the same time they didn’t really make it past midfield because of the domination of our defense, which continued to create scoring opportunities for our offense.”

The Lady Tigers got their sixth and final goal of the game on a long shot by sophomore Baylee Hickok on a great assist from Becca Bergstrom as time was winding down at the end.

“At the end of the day, the defense helps the offense and then the offense helps the defense, and that’s just good team soccer and how you win games,” Bergstrom said. “This was a good all-around game for us and we played a solid 80 minutes and were able to get everyone in the game.

“Our seniors got the big win on their home field, and we all got to ring the victory bell afterward. All of our seniors after the game said, ‘we’re not finished yet,’ and as a coach that’s what you want to hear, so we’ll try to keep this train rollin’.”

The Lady Tigers improve to 12-4-2 on the season, as they are the No. 3 seed. MHS will play the second game at approximately 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 22 at Valley against the No. 2  seed Alexander.

“I think we’ve got a good chance to win our district semifinal game next Tuesday at Valley High School in Lucasville against Albany Alexander, and hopefully after that we’ll see what happens in the finals,” Bergstrom said. “They play a really tough schedule and play a lot of good teams down in that area, so they’ll be a tough game for us for sure.”

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