SEYMOUR
The Center Grove girls soccer team is used to having tantalizingly close matches with conference rival and longtime nemesis Carmel.
Saturday’s Class 3A semistate match was not one of them.
The No. 4 Greyhounds were in control from the opening seconds, ending the Trojans’ season with a convincing 3-0 victory at Seymour High School.
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No. 8 Center Grove finishes with an 18-4 record.
"We had a slow start and they took advantage early," Trojans coach Mike Bishop said. "(Carmel’s) a good team; there’s nothing else to say. They were just more active, more physical, more whatever, and we just didn’t have it. We didn’t have an answer."
The Greyhounds (19-1-2) needed just under eight minutes to grab the lead. After Trojan netminder Kelti Wise stopped a point-blank shot, Carmel kept the ball in the box and Kelsie James punched in a shot just seconds later.
That early tally — which many on the Center Grove side thought should have been negated by an offsides call that never came — put the Trojans in an early hole that they couldn’t climb out of.
"It was really hard for the team; we weren’t expecting it," Center Grove senior Megan Perry said of Carmel’s opening blitz. "We were never able to get back in our routine."
James added another tally 4:50 into the second half, getting past the defense and winning a one-on-one against Wise at close range.
That was more than enough of a cushion for a Carmel defense that has allowed just four goals all season. Center Grove didn’t manage a single shot, on goal or otherwise, until Jostin Reeves put a free kick on frame with 26:25 left in the match.
Greyhounds keeper Erin Baker stopped that shot and cut off the only other mild threat, a chip across the goal mouth, before any Trojans could get to it. Center Grove was outshot by a 14-1 margin on the day.
Carmel tacked on a third goal with 1:08 remaining in the match when Emily Speidel headed home a cross from Elizabeth Hargis.
Wise, who spent a great deal of time under fire, finished with eight saves in defeat.
After the loss, Bishop was quick to remind his team that it was one of the last four standing in Class 3A, and that hundreds of other teams in the state would have loved to had such a deep tournament run.
His players seemed to be on the same page.
"I’m really proud of how far we’ve come and how much work we put into it," Perry said. "Yeah, we didn’t get the turnout that we wanted, but it was better than what we expected of ourselves and what most people expected from us, so I’m just proud of us."
"The girls played hard," Bishop added. "They’ve battled all season, and games that no one thought they even should be in, ended up beating the team handily. There’s so many positives to say — it’s just, everybody can’t win the last game of the season."
