READY TO SHOT — Big Red’s Bailey Beal takes a shot in Monday’s tournament opener against Indian Creek. She scored four goals at Harding Stadium, helping the Big Red win 8-0. – Andrew Grimm
STEUBENVILLE — Different week, same result — this time there’s more to come.
The Big Red girls soccer team advanced to the Division III East Tournament with an 8-0 victory over visiting Indian Creek on Monday at Harding Stadium, hoping to open a long tournament.
Steubenville also defeated the Redskins by the same score on Senior Night last Tuesday.
The second-seeded Big Red (14-3) advances to test-top seeded Tri-Valley next Monday in the regional semifinals.
“It was a good way to start the tournament.” Big Red head coach Anni Cutli said. “We needed to build some confidence heading into Tri-Valley. This group can compete with Tri-Valley. Hopefully this will get us off to a good start heading into the playoffs.”
Bailey Beal, the program’s all-time leading scorer with five goals and one assist in last week’s matchup, had another big performance with four goals and one assist.
Amelia Collopy had one goal and two assists, Gianna Thomas had one goal and one assist, Lucy Saccoccia had three assists, and Kenzie Petrel and Jolie Lombardo each scored.
“Seeing some shots go in is huge for confidence.” Kutli said. “We told some girls to shoot all year long, but they didn’t participate. Now is the perfect time to start connecting with them.
“It’s big for our juniors to have the confidence that they can go one-on-one against players and turn and take shots, because we’re going to get all the (as the tournament progresses) This is because it requires attack power.
Steubenville led 7-0 at halftime, and the eighth point (Beal’s fourth) enacted the mercy rule.
“The Big Red is a good team. It’s fun to watch guys that always seem to know where each other is, and (Collopy and Beal) seemed to know where each other was, so that (the game) was fun. “It was very difficult to protect),” Indian Creek coach Danny Lawrence said: “We did a good job of slowing them down at times. (Beal) didn’t get as many clean looks as she did (last week) and it gave them a lot of effort for their looks. I wanted them to work.”
For seventh-seeded Indian Creek, it was the end for its six seniors.
“It’s always tough. We had senior night and then we had a make-up game at home, so we played the last three games together, so to speak, so that eased the pain a little bit…the second night… It was the toughest. It was the last home game.” Lawrence said.
The Redskins finished the season with 4 wins and 13 losses.
“I learned a lot from them, and I hope they learned a lot from me too.” Lawrence added. “We really want to turn the corner next year. We’ve had the same record two years in a row, so we need to turn the corner. That’s what we’re going to work on in the offseason.”
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