Center Grove’s girls soccer team was having trouble converting ball control into scoring chances early in Thursday’s match at county rival Franklin.
Once the goals started coming, though, they didn’t stop.
Ali Wiesmann scored four times — three of those coming in a span of six and a half minutes early in the second half — and Emily Karr added three to power the Class 3A No. 7 Trojans to a 9-0 victory over the Grizzly Cubs.
“At halftime, we knew we were only up two,” Wiesmann said. “Our whole team just got together and we were like, ‘We’re going to score some goals this half,’ and we did.”
Indeed.
The Trojans’ first goal came on a fortunate break, as a slow-rolling ball from the right corner somehow made it all the way across the goal mouth untouched. Karr was waiting at the back post to knock it into the net just 9:05 into the contest.
Such good fortune wasn’t needed otherwise, as the visitors made some in-game adjustments and generated plenty of scoring chances as a result.
“We were in a good position overall; we kept the ball well,” Center Grove coach Myron Vaughn said. “We made a little bit of a shape change about 15, 20 minutes in to add some players into the final third and create more passing lanes to play into, and that opened up the game up a little bit. What it did was create some more clear-cut scoring opportunities, which we took advantage of.”
Center Grove (5-0-1) was able to break through for a second time. Taylor Wert sent a ball forward from the midfield to Ella DeWitt, who stormed into the box on the left side before dropping it off out front for an open Wiesmann. That tally came with 15:01 on the first-half clock, and the 2-0 advantage held until the intermission.
Wiesmann scored again just 1:36 into the second half, then finished off the hat trick by knocking home a rebound five minutes later. Not even two minutes after that, the senior netted a fourth off a cross from Adex Bixler to trigger a running clock. Wiesmann exited the match with 32 minutes remaining.
“Every single goal we scored was from the team,” Wiesmann said. “Not one person did anything; it was really just a team effort.”
Even without Wiesmann on the field, the floodgates remained open. DeWitt made it 6-0 with 27 minutes to go, and Karr netted her second two minutes later. Madi Kramer tacked on a goal with about seven minutes left, and Karr closed the match with one last score in the closing seconds.
For the Grizzly Cubs (2-7), goalkeeper Sophie Taylor made 12 saves in a valiant effort before coming out late in the second half with an apparent injury.
Franklin coach Michael Pierson hopes his squad will bounce back quickly from the defeat.
“We’re just going to take it and build,” he said. “We’re going to build from what we saw from Center Grove and the way they move the ball, the way they play aggressively, and we’re going to continue to implement those things in our practice and just try to get better.”
