On paper, the Cedar Falls girls’ soccer team didn’t appear to be a dangerous side heading into Monday’s non-conference matchup against visiting Ankeny.
The Tigers had been outscored, 8-2, while losing three of their first four games. Fourth-ranked Ankeny, meanwhile, was riding a four-game winning streak, including a victory over defending Class 3A state champion Johnston a week ago.
But soccer can be an unpredictable sport.
Cedar Falls scored on its only shot of the game and got 17 saves from sophomore goalkeeper Alexis Montgomery to beat the Hawkettes, 1-0, at the Cedar Valley Soccer Complex.
“We haven’t had a bad loss like that in a long time,” said Ankeny coach Simon Brown. “It’s easy to turn up to practice and games when you’re winning all the time. Now we’re going to have to see what the girls are like after a bad loss like that. You’ve got to bounce back.”
Ankeny dominated the run of play, outshooting the Tigers by a 30-1 margin. The Hawkettes had a chance to break the scoreless tie with less than 12 minutes left in the second half, but Montgomery dove to her right and batted away a penalty kick by Alli Macke.
“That was one of the many chances that we had,” Brown said. “It was unfortunate that it happened that way, but the girls got a wake-up call today. Their inability to score is going to be tough to overcome if we can’t do a better job in front of the goal. We need to work on our finishing skills.”
With 3 minutes left in regulation, Cedar Falls was awarded a free kick. And senior Ella Ubben made the Hawkettes pay, finding the net for her second goal of the season.
“That’s our sport,” Brown said. “You only need one (goal) to win.”
The Tigers improved to 2-3 on the season. Ankeny’s record dropped to 4-2.
Brown said the Hawkettes will have to be prepared for future opponents to use a strategy similar to Cedar Falls’ conservative approach.
“Some teams will choose to defend like Cedar Falls did, and they’ll roll the dice that they can score if they get a chance or two,” Brown said. “We just can’t take that many (shots) and not score. It’s tough to take. We dominated and created lots of chances, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t actually score.”
The Hawkettes will host a CIML Conference game against No. 7 Southeast Polk on Tuesday. The Rams are 1-1 in the league and 6-1 overall after dropping a 2-1 decision to No. 1 Waukee Northwest on Friday.
