Center Grove’s Taylor Wert, center, looks for a move during Thursday’s game against visiting Bloomington North.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
Even as the Center Grove girls soccer team dealt with the frustration of a scoreless first half, it always seemed inevitable that the seal on Bloomington North’s goal was going to crack.
It took the Class 3A No. 7 Trojans a little more than half the evening to break through, but once the ice was broken the home side kept the momentum going the rest of the way in a 3-0 sectional semifinal victory.
Center Grove (14-2-2) advances to Saturday afternoon’s championship match, where it will face Terre Haute South — which had to travel all the way to Greenwood to defeat rival Terre Haute North, 2-1, in the other semi.
“I think it was more a matter of time,” said senior Emily Karr, who scored the Trojans’ first goal on Thursday. “We were finding our passes very well; we just couldn’t finish the ball. … It was a lot easier once we got one goal.”
Getting that first one took a while against a packed-in Bloomington North defense.
Center Grove spent the overwhelming majority of the first half in the attacking third, consistently applying pressure on the Cougars’ back line. Taylor Wert had three clean looks from similar spots about 20 yards away midway through the half, with two going wide right and one finding the arms of Bloomington North goalkeeper Rachel Campbell — who proved to be the runaway star of the first 40 minutes.
The Trojans’ best chance of the half came with 28:58 on the clock, when Karr was awarded a penalty kick and sent a low shot just inside the right post. Campbell came up with the stop, though, lunging to her left and knocking it away.
Denied on that shot, Center Grove continued to create opportunities. Molly Tapak shot high on a free kick from about 25 yards out, then narrowly missed wide on a left-to-right shot just inside the penalty area. Campbell put herself in the right place again late in the half, making the save when Karr redirected a Kayli Farmer cross with her head.
Early in the second half, though, the Trojans finally solved Campbell and put one away. Karr struck first with 36:17 left in the match, punching home a rebound after Ella DeWitt’s initial shot was stopped.
Center Grove coach Myron Vaughn says his team made some adjustments at halftime that helped open things up a bit.
“It was one of those games where they put a lot of players behind the ball,” Vaughn said. “We knew it was going to be about solving problems, patience and kind of separating them and drawing them into places they didn’t want to be. … We sped the game up a little bit in the second half. We added players to the attack — our outside backs, we added them to the attack as well to create more numbers-up situations and more advantages around the field.”
Karr had three more shots over the next 10 minutes or so, two of them saved by Campbell and one sailing high, but it was Tapak who wound up getting Center Grove’s second tally. The senior midfielder followed a lead pass from Wert into the box, cashing in with ease from close range at the 25:34 mark.
Ali Wiesmann capped the scoring with 15:37 left, knocking the ball in after a Farmer cross rolled through into the center of the box. The Cougars (7-8) never seriously threatened at the other end.
“I told them, ‘Once the first one goes in, the dam will break a little bit,’ and it did,” Vaughn said. “I’m proud of them. Both of these last two games were two different types of circumstances … so far, we’re 2 for 2 dealing with some of these different situations. It’s only going to make us better, hopefully, as we advance in the tournament.”
