Notre Dame peppers state-ranked Westminster, wins 5-0

~ After a scoreless half, the Bulldogs solved the state-ranked squad.

The Notre Dame High School boys soccer team controlled much of the first-half play Friday but had few dangerous chances against visiting Westminster from St. Louis County.

As a result, the Bulldogs entered the intermission locked in a scoreless duel.

But that didn't last long. After some halftime adjustments, Notre Dame pumped in five second-half goals to rout the Wildcats 5-0 in a battle of state-ranked Class 2 squads.

Sixth-ranked Notre Dame improved to 17-1 while fifth-ranked Westminster fell to 12-3.

"I'm very pleased," Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn said. "This is a huge win for us against a very good team."

Wittenborn said a lesson learned against another team from the St. Louis area last month that resulted in the Bulldogs' lone loss paid dividends Friday.

Whitfield, which beat Notre Dame 2-1 in overtime, plays a defensive style similar to Westminster by overloading the midfield, which takes away the Bulldogs' normally controlled passing game.

"We normally try to be patient and keep the ball on the ground," explained Wittenborn. "But they were skilled, reading our passes and picking off way too many.

"In the second half we opened up our attack and tried to play more direct. We tried to bypass the midfield and play directly to our forwards. That put us one-on-one more often, and I like our guys one-on-one."

Added Wittenborn: "Against Whitfield, the game we lost, they use a similar style. We didn't get the adjustments made, but we worked on it the next day. I credit my assistants, Matt Vollink and Jeff Worley, for really getting us into our adjustments."

It didn't take long for the strategy to pay off as 6-foot-6 inch Ryan Willen headed home a perfect cross from Abe Dirnberger just 3 minutes, 18 seconds into the second half.

Dirnberger beat several defenders along the right sideline before feeding the ball to Willen.

"That was really a nice play by Abe, and Ryan put it in," Wittenborn said.

And the rout was effectively on as the Bulldogs made it 3-0 before the midway point of the final period.

Jack Wedemeier scored an unassisted goal with 25:20 remaining, and Wedemeier found the net again off an assist from Ty Williams with 20:20 to play.

With 17:46 left, Williams scored off an assist from Dirnberger. Dirnberger then capped the onslaught at the 5:28 mark, with an assist from Brett Heischmidt.

"We changed our style in the second half and it worked well," Wedemeier said. "I feel good about how we played. We showed we can keep up with the St. Louis teams, that we're not just some little team from Southeast Missouri."

Notre Dame sophomore goalkeeper Ryan Bass didn't have to work overly hard in the nets, although he did make a couple of nice saves, including one in the closing minutes that preserved the shutout.

"He's had a lot of big games for us this year," Wittenborn said.