Girls soccer: Plant gets even with Newsome

LITHIA - On a normal trip to an away match for Plant the bus is alive with chatter until pulling in to the opposing school. Laughing, joking, Ipods on, phones sending texts. Panthers coach Stephen McGill said there was none of that Thursday in the final 10 minutes of the trip to Newsome.

"Silence," McGill said. "They started this match ten minutes down the road and they were dead serious before they got here."

Thursday's match marked the second meeting between the two teams this season after the Wolves won the final of Wharton's Lady Wildcat Invitational Nov. 7 after seven rounds of penalty kicks. This time around the Panthers came out firing and dominated the early part of the match, getting two goals from freshman forward Caroline Bado in the first 20 minutes as Plant won, 2-1.

"The girls were determined tonight," McGill said. "They remembered what it was like to watch Newsome celebrate after the Wharton tournament and they were committed to prevent that from happening."

Bado opened the scoring with a rocket shot to the upper left corner of the net after a pass from Ellen Moore. Bado extended the Panthers' lead after a pass from Connor Zwetsch found her waiting in the box, flicking it in out of the reach of Wolves keeper Teena Fehling. Bado extended her team lead in goals scored to 10 with the two against the Wolves as the freshman continues to impress her coach.

"What can I say?" McGill asked. "The goals that Caroline scores are amazing. They are all beautiful, one-touch, turn and cranks."

The Wolves had little going right on offense in the first half and the Panthers defense held strong deep into the second half. With a two-goal lead at half McGill said he knew the Panthers couldn't let up. The Wolves lived up to McGill's expectations in the second half with a fierce pace on offense that started to find cracks in Plant's defense.

The Wolves cut their deficit to one in the 67th minute, Jackie Simpson heading home from a Caroline Evers corner, but the Wolves weren't able to find another opportunity in the match as Plant stayed composed.

"We all know a 2-0 lead that early is a guess," McGill said. "We knew they weren't going to go away, so we had to go back to doing what we do and control the ball."

Wolves junior Karina Gutsche looked fast all night, but was unable to capitalize on the few chances she was given by the Panthers defense headed by senior Amy Werdine. After the match Newsome coach Kelly Townsend said she had nothing but praise for her team's continued focus despite being behind in the match.

"They never quit and I can't be mad at them for that," Townsend said of her team. "I'm not disappointed at all. I'm actually very proud of the way they handled this. This is the first time this season we have been down, they responded and we just ran out of time and couldn't get another one in."