NOTRE DAME SOCCER TEAM DOWNS CENTRAL FOR 18TH STRAIGHT VICTORY

Against any other team, it could have been just a late-season yawner for two teams concentrating on the upcoming district tournaments.

But when the Cape Girardeau Central and Notre Dame soccer teams hook up, a high-spirited, competitive match almost always results.

Nothing changed Thursday at the Notre Dame High soccer field as the Tigers and Bulldogs both played their final games of the regular season.

Notre Dame met its agenda as it won its 20th match of the season, beating Central 2-0 for its second victory this year over the Tigers to win the Cape County title.

The Bulldogs finished the regular season at 20-1 while Central dropped to 15-9-1.

"This was a very good win for us," said Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn. "Central is playing well and I thought they played well today. At times I thought they played harder than we did and we don't usually like that to happen to us. They made us work for everything we got."

Although Central made Notre Dame work, Mother Nature might have given the Bulldogs a little assistance.

Notre Dame scored its first goal midway through the first half. On somewhat of a fluke play, the Bulldogs' Adam Vickery scored a goal on a corner kick. A gusty wind altered the path of the ball as it bounced off the hand of the Central goaltender and landed in the goal.

Central was forced to push late in the game in hopes of tying the score. This opened the field and Notre Dame's Bryan Schaefer answered with an insurance score in the closing minutes of the contest. Matt Vollink got an assist.

"We got a bit of a lucky goal with a little assistance from the wind in the first half," said Wittenborn. "And the goal Bryan got was a result of them having to push late in the game."

"It's unfortunate that wind involves an important game like this," said Central coach Tom Doyle. "If we would have won the toss we would have been going with the wind in the first half ourselves. Luck of a flip maybe, but its not that the wind won the game for them. They didn't get to be 20-1 without having a very good team."

Central opens district play Saturday at 3 p.m. at Lou Muegge Field. The top-seeded Tigers will play Sikeston.

Notre Dame is also the top seed in its district tournament at Festus. The Bulldogs have a first-round bye and will play on Tuesday.

Notre Dame also downed Cape Central 3-1 on Wednesday. Scoring for Notre Dame were Robbie Winschel, Jason Garner and Zach Miller. Notre Dame's season ended at 11-3-1.