Notre Dame avenges soccer loss to Cape Central

Round two between the two city soccer rivals, Notre Dame and Cape Girardeau Central, proved to be an intense and spirited contest.

Meeting for the second time in two days, Notre Dame prevailed in this SEMO Conference matchup 2-1 at the Southeast Missouri State University Intramural Field Tuesday night.

Cape Central had nipped the Bulldogs 1-0 for the championship of the Notre Dame Soccerfest Monday night.

"One of the kids jokingly said, 'Coach, can we play the rubber game tomorrow night'," said a smiling Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn.

This match was a tale of two halves. Notre Dame (3-1, 1-0 conference) controlled the action in the first and Cape Central (4-1-1, 0-1) came roaring back to dominate the second.

Notre Dame's Shane Kistner opened the scoring when he knocked in a rebound off Central goalie Trevor Blattner at the 19-minute mark. Blattner made initial stop on a shot by Mark Wittenborn, but was unable to catch the ball cleanly. When it trickled away, Kistner was there to send it goalward.

With about 12 minutes left in the first half, Bulldog Matt Pobst floated a perfect cross from the left sideline toward the goal where Timmy Wencewicz's header found the net to send the Bulldogs up 2-0.

"I thought we played a smart first half, if nothing else," said coach Wittenborn. "The effort was certainly there."

But in the second half, Cape Central turned up the heat and kept pressure on the Bulldogs throughout. The Tigers were in the Notre Dame end of the field for about 30 of the 40 minutes.

"I was proud of the boys in the second half," said Tiger coach Tom Doyle. "At halftime, I talked about us maybe finding out what kind of team we are. Whether we would just give up because we were two down or fight back."

The Tigers chose to fight.

After several near misses, Central finally found the net with 16 minutes left when Jordan Duncan scored unassisted on a shot from the left side of the box to close the gap to 2-1.

Several other scoring attempts by the Tigers came close in their second-half comeback effort, but the Bulldogs were able to hang on for the victory.

The Tigers outshot the Bulldogs 12-2 in the second half.

"They were all over us," said (Brad) Wittenborn, "but knowing these guys, I knew there was no quit in them."

Notre Dame's JV team beat Cape Central by an identical 2-1 score. Notre Dame's goals were scored by Wade Kramer and Clayton LeGrand.