Central overpowers Notre Dame in rematch

~ A week after a 0-0 deadlock, the Tigers won a 3-0 decision in the meeting of state-ranked teams.

After 100 minutes of soccer last week, Central and Notre Dame stood deadlocked.

The second meeting between the two teams at Notre Dame on Wednesday was not as close, as Central notched two late first-half goals and cruised to a 3-0 win in the battle of state-ranked teams.

Central, No. 6 in Class 3, improved to 19-2-1. Notre Dame, tied for No. 4 in Class 2, fell to 15-3-3.

The win also clinched the conference title for the Tigers.

"The most important thing in the game for us is that gives us conference champs six years in a row," Central coach Tom Doyle said.

Matt Hester provided all the offense Central would need, scoring two goals over the final 5 minutes of the opening half. Hester's first goal came on a good individual effort by Sam Bornstein.

Bornstein beat several defenders down the sideline and cut toward the goal. With the sweeper in his way, Bornstein was able to feed Hester in the middle for an easy tap-in.

"I beat a guy on the sideline and it was just me and the sweeper," Bornstein said. "I saw Hester in the middle, and I couldn't get the shot off. He just made a good finish."

Hester put the game out of reach with a turn-around shot with less than 2 minutes remaining in the half. Tyson Whiteside found Hester in the middle of the field, and Hester's shot just passed by the outstretched hands of Notre Dame goalie Nathan Kolda.

"The second goal was huge," Bornstein said. "That took all the wind out of them and pretty much solidified the victory."

Hester's two-goal first half played right into Doyle's game plan.

"I told Matt Hester before the game I needed two goal from him, and he got them before the half," Doyle said.

Notre Dame had a couple of weak chances in the opening half, but for the most part the Tigers controlled the play. A cross in the opening 10 minutes fielded by Central goalie Jordan Young was about all the offense for the Bulldogs.

"For whatever reason we didn't play with the energy that we played with last week," Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn said. "We had good effort from about half of our players, and the other half we had good effort half of the time. Against a good team like Central you can't take plays off."

In the second half, Lance Altenthal added some insurance 10 minutes in. Bornstein again assisted as the Tigers grabbed a 3-0 lead.

Notre Dame picked up its play after the Altenthal goal. Young was forced to make a pair of saves midway through the half to preserve the shutout.

"We were struggling there a little and Jordan came up with two huge saves," Doyle said. "That's basically what we try to ask our goalies to do -- try and give us two good saves."

Many of Notre Dame's good runs in the second half went wasted. Nearly every time a Notre Dame offensive player would beat a defender on the wing, there was no one there to receive a cross.

"Our effort's been really good most of the year, so hopefully we'll bounce back," Wittenborn said.

Central will be back in action on Saturday against DeSmet. The Tigers are just ahead of the No. 6 Spartans in the Missouri Soccer Coaches Association Class 3 top 15. Action begins with a junior varsity contest at noon.