“Big” won out over “Little” in a girls soccer regional game Wednesday night at Goshen High School.
Penn tallied three goals in the span of eight second-half minutes on the way to a 5-0 victory over the Bethany Christian Bruins.
“It was a great game,” Bethany coach Dennis Yoder said. “Penn played good and is a very organized team.
“We started letting down on defense. Penn is five times the size school Bethany is. A lot of their girls play in the Junior Irish program. Most of my girls don’t, because they are playing other high school sports. I’m proud of the way the girls stepped up.”
According the to IHSAA Web site, Bethany’s enrollment is 177 students compared to Penn’s 3,394.
Penn (18-3) advances to the Crown Point semistate on Saturday, meeting the Munster regional winner. Bethany finishes 11-7-3.
“Bethany made us work for everything we got,” Penn coach Mike Luber said. “Bethany is well coached and very organized. We had to get by that.”
Penn led 1-0 at halftime as sophomore Katie Hojara scored in the 6th minute, assisted by junior Ally Scholtes.
Bethany’s senior goalkeeper — Kelly Snyder — kept the Bruins in the contest with six first-half saves.
“I’m proud of Snyder,” Yoder said. “Losing her is going to make it difficult for next year.”
Luber was impressed the Bethany keeper saying, “I didn’t know much about Bethany coming into the game other than reading in the papers that Snyder stopped seven penalty kicks in their win over Westview. She made some great saves.”
Snyder finished with 11 saves.
The score remained 1-0 until freshman Kimi Luttrell scored in the 50th minute. That opened the floodgates and Penn tallied goals in the 67th minute by Scholtes, in the 68th by sophomore Katie Burns and in the 75th by Hojara.
“Penn has speed and a good first touch,” Yoder said. “We could not contain them.”
Penn had an 18-1 edge in shots on goals and 7-0 in corner kicks.
Penn’s defense led by senior Sammy Trail, juniors Alyssa Hummel, Bailey Personette and Shannon Reid kept Bethany from getting much offense going.
“Penn has not given up many goals this season,” Yoder said. “We could not get through their defense.”
Luber said, “We told our backs to play with composure and redirect balls with their heads. We made some nice adjustments during the game and our keeper (senior Haley Craig) did a good job of directing the defense in the second half.”
Penn kept the pressure on for most of the game.
“We talked to the kids about applying pressure in the second half, especially around midfield,” Luber said. “We felt doing that would put us in good positions. We applied good pressure and won a lot of balls at midfield. We stayed aggressive and hungry.”
Hojara has scored 28 goals this season.
“We knew Bethany would be marking Hojara and No. 6 (senior Karli Graybill) did a good job on her,” Luber said. “But the couple times Bethany forgot about her, she scored.
“Bethany worked hard at getting behind the ball so we had to skip the midfield and kick the ball longer. The girls worked the game plan to a T.”
Yoder added, “Karli (Graybill) had a great year. She had to mark up the other team’s top offensive player. She did a good job on No. 6 (Hojara).”
Besides Snyder and Graybill, the Bruins lose Caitlin Fecher, Emma Gerig, Marissa Weldy and Sierra Wheeler to graduation.
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Fine Bethany season ends
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