Goalkeeper Sophia Gorall, center, and the Center Grove defense hold Bloomington South at bay during Tuesday’s sectional match.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
When the IHSAA’s blind draw left Center Grove’s girls soccer team with a first-round sectional match against fellow top-10 squad Bloomington South, Trojans coach Myron Vaughn didn’t mind at all. He knew his team would respond to the challenge on its home pitch.
On Tuesday night, that’s exactly what happened.
Goalkeeper Sophia Gorall made 13 saves and teamed with the Center Grove defense to pitch a shutout against the Class 3A No. 9 Panthers, allowing Jenna Margiotti’s second-half goal to hold up as the difference in a 1-0 triumph.
The seventh-ranked Trojans (13-2-2) will play Bloomington North in a semifinal match on Thursday evening. Center Grove beat the Cougars 2-0 back in August.
“Teams win these tournaments by winning games like these,” Vaughn said of Tuesday’s win. “Keeping the ball out of the back of your net, getting lucky sometimes, taking the chances that you get and putting them away. We knew going into it that it was going to be this type of game, having played them earlier in the year and understanding the way that they went about things, and how it really contradicted the way we play.”
After the teams spent the first 10 minutes or so largely stuck in the middle of the field, Bloomington South (13-2-2) gradually started to get the better of the action. The Panthers had a couple of scoring threats midway through the first half, the most dangerous coming in the 23rd minute when freshman Valerie Bunde collected a cross, turned and fired hard toward the right side of the net. Center Grove’s Sophia Gorall dove to her left and made the stop, one of eight made by the junior in a busy — but ultimately scoreless — first 40 minutes.
“I saw a commitment to come and be the aggressor, to come and get the ball and not rely on having to react to what the other team did,” Vaughn said of Gorall. “She made the decisions. She was quick off of her line, she came to make saves and she came to get the ball. Her decisiveness made all the difference in the world for us back there.”
The visitors continued to knock on the door after the break, but the Trojans did make one good push deep into Panther territory early on — and they made it count. Taylor Wert sent a pass into the box, where it found the foot of an uncovered Margiotti about 12 yards in front of the net. Margiotti converted, giving the home side the upper hand with 33:11 remaining on the clock.
That goal turned out to be all that Center Grove needed.
Bloomington South went right back to work, putting a shot off the corner of the crossbar just moments after Margiotti’s goal, and had another opportunity on a scrum in front of the net with about 15 minutes to go, but Gorall was able to make the stop. The Panthers continued to attack, but each forward surge was inevitably turned away, the last one when Gorall came out to the outer corner of the penalty area to smother the ball before a shot could be attempted.
“At the end of the day, the way you defend is the result you get,” Vaughn said, “and today we defended like our season was on the line, which it was.”
