During the first half of Wednesday evening’s match at Greenwood, the Whiteland girls soccer team was growing a bit frustrated with its inability to capitalize on the scoring opportunities it was creating.
After halftime, the floodgates opened quickly.
Junior Madisyn Proctor collected three second-half goals and senior Madi Bartak found the net twice, propelling the Warriors to a dominating 6-0 victory in Mid-State Conference play.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“We had so many shots and opportunities, we were bound to get some,” first-year Whiteland coach Abby Gross said. “Once we had more, they all came at once.”
Though the Warriors (2-2, 1-1) had the ball in Greenwood’s end for most of the first half, they weren’t able to get on the board until the 32nd minute, when Bartak placed a shot just out of the reach of Woodmen goalie Maddy Moan from about 20 yards out.
Greenwood got a couple of first-half shots on goal from senior Kayla Rance, but Whiteland keeper Jenny Gonzalez was able to come up with the stop each time.
The second half was all Warriors. Freshman Stephanie Brady scored on a rebound just 1:15 into the period, and Bartak notched her second goal less than six minutes later from right in front of the net.
Proctor did the rest of the damage, scoring twice from point-blank range in a span of just over three minutes midway through the half and adding another tally with 4:50 to go.
“We were pretty bummed that we weren’t getting that many in the first half,” Proctor said, “so we knew that when the second half came, we had to push it harder.”
Greenwood freshman Brooklyn Stubblefield came on in relief of an injured Moan in the second half and performed admirably in goal, making seven saves, but she was all too frequently a sitting duck against the Whiteland attack.
Gross was thrilled with how her team performed on the road against a league and county foe.
“This is one that we’ve all been really excited for,” she said. “When you play a rival, everyone plays better, including the other team, so I just stressed the importance of coming out hard, and they did that.”
