Bulldogs' season ends in Class 2 quarters

HILLSBORO, Mo. -- The Notre Dame Bulldogs girls soccer team faced a familiar opponent in its Class 2 state quarterfinal Thursday.

The Notre Dame-St. Louis Rebels ended the Bulldogs' season a year ago in the same round and defeated them on their home field earlier this month.

Feeling change was needed, the Bulldogs devised a new formation and used new tactics only to get the same result Thursday, this time a 5-0 loss to the Rebels at Hillsboro High School.

"We knew that they were a really good team and they had a couple players that were really good," Bulldogs defender Katherine Blasiney said. "We've seen them before in previous years."

First on the list of players to focus on was Rebels midfielder Michelle Auer, who scored the only goal in the Bulldogs' 1-0 loss in the quarterfinals last season and had scored 27 goals this season entering Thursday's game.

"We knew that they had one player in the middle who controlled pretty much their whole team," Blasiney said, referring to Auer. "She's really good, and we just had to try and keep an eye on her and all the other players because if she got the ball, she'd find someone and they'd get a goal."

This time around, the Bulldogs put more defenders on the field.

"We took up a new strategy fielding wise," Bulldogs sophomore Brianne Sanders said. "Instead of four midfielders, we stacked up our defense a little more and were kind of switching due to their players and their midfielders."

The goal was to slow down Auer and the Rebels offense while giving the Bulldogs opportunities to attack.

"We tried to get a different formation to have people back to where we could get it and a bunch of people would go forward, where they really wouldn't have time to mark us up," Blasiney said.

But the Bulldogs spent most of the game's first 10 minutes on the Rebels' side of the field, fending off four scoring chances in that short amount of time.

"I knew that it was bound to happen," said Lindsey Strieker, the Bulldogs' goalkeeper, of all the Rebels' offensive opportunities. "They were taking a lot of shots and I knew they were going to get one in eventually. I just had to keep my focus throughout the game."

After three more narrow misses, the Rebels broke through with a goal off a free kick from just outside the box.

"My heart would sink some," Blasiney said of all the shots. "But our district championship game when Sikeston scored on us, we didn't really put our heads down too much and we were able to come back."

The Rebels added a second goal with just less than 10 minutes to go in the half.

"We tried it in the first couple minutes and it didn't really work," Sanders said about the defensive changes, "so we just kind of went back to our normal game and tried to pick it up from there."

Notre Dame coach Jeff Worley said the plan was to switch out of the formation if his team fell behind.

"I just think we weren't really used to it and so we freaked out, and whenever they scored that first goal we just didn't know what to do," Blasiney said.

Changing out of the formation meant more time spent on their own end of the field as the first half came to a close, but no real scoring opportunities for the Bulldogs and no shots on goal in the first half.

"We were starting to play our own game more, kind of started doing give-and-goes and playing more possession instead of chasing around," Sanders said. "I think that really helped us out compared to that whole first part of the half."

Eventually though, the Rebels found ways to take advantage of the Bulldogs sending more players forward, getting behind the Bulldogs' defense often to add three more goals in the second half.

"It just seems like they never end, like players from out of nowhere," Blasiney said. "But we tried."

The Bulldogs finished the season 13-10.

"They're just a great team all together," Sanders said. "They have strong offenders, defenders. They are fast. They settle and work the ball around really well. They're just an all-around good team."