When the Ankeny Centennial girls’ soccer team went to the locker room at halftime during Friday’s game at Waukee, the Jaguars felt pretty good about being knotted in a scoreless tie.
“We were going against the wind for the first half and despite being against the wind, I thought we played really good soccer,” said Centennial coach Chris Allen. “We challenged the girls to be brave and to try to play our game. We had Maddie Stribe in goal, and we were able to play through her a lot to move the ball pretty well up and down and around the field. We were looking forward to having the wind behind us in the second half.”
Unfortunately, fourth-ranked Centennial couldn’t find the net in the final 40 minutes. The Jaguars were repeatedly denied by Waukee goalkeeper Laura Nidey, who racked up 11 saves as the No. 8 Warriors posted a 1-0 victory.
“It was a bit of a heartbreaker,” Allen said. “We did create some chances, but I think our best chances were just off target or our shots on goal were pretty much direct toward Nidey. Trying to clean that up will be one of our challenges going forward.”
Waukee scored the game’s only goal at the 55-minute mark. Mira Horner connected off an assist by Josie Muelhaupt for her third goal of the season.
“We were in possession of the ball, but just kind of played it off-balance,” Allen said. “Waukee was able to come into our box and pick it up and was able to one-touch it past Maddie. But I still felt like there was a lot to be proud of. It’s unfortunate that on the goal we gave up the girls were trying to play the way we asked them to. They’re trying to develop our team for the longer run, so I’m proud of that even though that was probably what cost us the goal.”
The Jaguars outshot Waukee by a 17-13 margin. Avery Lewis led the way with four attempts.
After the Warriors took the lead, Centennial struggled to create some scoring opportunities.
“Things got tough for us because they were able to adapt to the situation,” Allen said. “They were able to drop a second midfielder into the 18 and really packed it in. We then struggled to break through their defense.”
The loss ended a four-game winning streak for the Jaguars, who dropped to 2-1 in the CIML Conference and 5-2 overall. Waukee raised its records to 2-3 and 7-3.
Centennial will host a conference game against No. 12 Johnston on Tuesday. The defending state champion Dragons (1-4, 4-5) are coming off a 2-1 overtime loss to No. 2 Valley on Friday.