ND BLANKS PERRYVILLE IN TOURNAMENT FINAL

The Notre Dame Lady Bulldogs overcame their opponents, as well as the cold weather, to emerge as champions of the third annual Notre Dame-Cape Central Noon Optimist Soccer Tournament.

Notre Dame defeated Perryville 3-0 in Saturday's final to improve to 3-1 on the young season.

The Lady Pirates, previously undefeated at 4-0, had no answers for the Lady Bulldogs as Notre Dame scored two first-half goals and added a third in the second half.

Katie Mehner put the champions on the board at the 23:00 minute mark with an unassisted goal from point-blank range off a bobbled save attempt by Perryville goalie Amanda Nuyt.

With 14:48 to go in the first half, Tracie Kluesner netted another unassisted goal from five feet out to put Notre Dame up 2-0.

In the second half, freshman Sierra Ellis completed the Notre Dame scoring with a 10-footer past a diving Perryville goalie with 2:55 left. Amanda Dirnberger assisted on the goal.

With several players returning from last year's team plus a talented group of freshmen, Notre Dame coach Jeff Worley was optimistic about his team coming in, but cautiously so.

"I wasn't quite sure how soon it was going to come together. We had five girls that were still playing basketball last weekend, but they were ready to play the first night," said Worley.

Earlier on Saturday, in the game of the day, the Lady Bulldogs defeated a tough Cape Central squad 2-1 in overtime to reach the finals. Notre Dame freshman Brittney Little scored the game-winner in the first overtime period to give Notre Dame its first-ever win over the Lady Tigers.

Cape Central coach Tom Doyle said, "We had two breakdowns against Notre Dame and they scored on both of them. That's an opportunistic team. We're going to have some good battles this year."

The Lady Tigers (2-1-1) rebounded with a 4-0 win over St. Vincent (2-2) to capture third place in the tournament.

Amber Voerg tallied twice for Central on assists from Trisha Klipfel and Katie Hawkins. A goal by Klipfel, assisted by Allie McGinty, and an unassisted score by Jessica Ham completed the Lady Tiger scoring.

Perryville reached the final via a 6-0 win over crosstown neighbor St. Vincent.

In the consolation bracket, defending champion Jackson found itself in a shootout for the second straight game. With the score tied at 0-0 at the end of regulation and two overtimes, The Lady Indians outscored Poplar Bluff 4-2 in the shootout to capture fifth place.

Jackson had eliminated Marion 5-1, while Poplar Bluff had gotten by Farmington 1-0 in the consolation semifinals.