Notre Dame steamrolls Central, 8-0

The Central girls soccer team stayed close for one half of its game Friday night against Notre Dame, but six goals in the second half put the game out of reach as the Bulldogs cruised to an 8-0 win over the Tigers.

"They really tried to clog it up, especially early on in the game they did a good job at that," Notre Dame coach Jeff Worley said. "I think as the game went on we were able to find space on the outside a little bit more and try to open them up a little more, and that helped us out."

The visiting Bulldogs led 2-0 at halftime, getting on the board early with a goal by sophomore Jordan Nelson in the fifth minute. Senior Taylor Rinda then scored one of her three goals on a penalty kick in the 20th minute after a Central player was called for a handball in the box.

Central coach Dan Martin credited freshman goalkeeper Brooke Anderson for the game being so close at halftime. Anderson made a number of good saves, including knocking the ball over the crossbar on a point blank shot.

"She's a freshman, and she has stepped up to kind of volunteer for the spot so she's learning, and I'm very thankful for her efforts and taking that role. It's a big role to do," Martin said about Anderson. "Notre Dame is an extremely good team, and so we knew that she was going to face a lot of shots, and she did phenomenal, I thought."

Central goalkeeper Brooke Anderson makes a save during the Tigers’ loss to the Bulldogs.

Rinda scored four minutes into the second half for Notre Dame and completed her hat trick in the 62nd minute.

"There were a couple things that we just had to kind of tweak," Rinda said about what changed after halftime. "We've had a couple days off, and so you always kind of come out a little rusty, but I think we kind of pulled it together and really got in our groove as a team and were working together."

Junior Kaitlin Welter scored in the 48th minute, and Nelson scored her second two minutes later. Juniors Shelby Beussink and Halle Lynch also scored for the Bulldogs. Notre Dame junior goalkeeper Madison Buelow earned the shutout.

"I was very pleased with the way we came out. We really had a lot of possession," Worley said. "I like our movement. We worked on that this week, trying to get more players behind the ball, and then once we have possession trying to get a lot of activity going to try to disrupt what the other team was trying to do."

Notre Dame will host St. Vincent on Tuesday with the junior varsity game starting at 5 p.m.

Central will compete in the Hillsboro Invitational Tournament this week.