CENTRAL, NOTRE DAME PLAY TO 2-2 DEADLOCK

The Notre Dame Lady Bulldogs and the Cape Central Lady Tigers battled into two overtime periods before settling for a 2-2 tie at the Notre Dame Sports Complex Wednesday night.

The match, hard-fought and intense, was the second meeting between the two city rivals. Both have gone into overtime with Notre Dame getting the nod in the first meeting, 2-1.

A prophetic Cape Central coach Tom Doyle said, " I said at the beginning of the year we were going to have some real battles with Notre Dame. Hey, now we have one more left."

Notre Dame (7-3-1) took the lead midway in the first half when Katie Mehner netted a rebound off Cape Central goalie Heather Hey. Hey, who injured a hand in pregame warmups, had perfect position for the save off a direct kick but was unable to make a clean catch and Mehner knocked it in. The 1-0 score stood up for the remainder of the first half.

The Lady Tigers (6-2-3) came storming back after the intermission as Jessica Ham, off an assist from Amber Voerg, drilled a shot into the lower right corner of the net with less than two minutes gone to knot the score at 1-1.

Three minutes later, Voerg, exhibiting nice ball-handling skills, scored an unassisted goal to send Cape Central up 2-1.

Then with 12 minutes left in regulation, Notre Dame's Cyndi Cox looped a kick from about thirty yards out over Cape Central reserve goalie Megan Kistner for the game-tying goal. The freshman Kistner, who performed well, was forced into action in the second half as regular goalkeeper Hey was unable to continue.

"We showed a lot of heart tonight," said Lady Bulldog coach Jeff Worley. "We gave up two early goals in the second half and it would have been real easy for us to quit at that point, but we didn't. We kept battling and we were able to get one to go in."

Notre Dame went into the contest without leading scorer Sierra Ellis, who sustained a slight concussion in the Lady Bulldogs last match against Poplar Bluff.

The intensity level remained high throughout the two five-minute overtime sessions, but neither team could find the net.