Perryville girls soccer team rides wind past Poplar Bluff

Everything turned after halftime for the Perryville girls soccer team Monday.

A stiff wind no longer served as a 12th Poplar Bluff defender.

Perryville used the wind to its advantage to rally for a 3-2 victory over the Mules at Jackson Junior High.

"It was a great difference," Perryville senior Kelsey Schremp said about the wind. "Huge difference. It helps with the wind, and running against it is a lot harder."

The momentum slowly started building in Perryville's favor as the second half rolled on. The Pirates started creating more chances and controlling the ball until Natalie Gremaud curled in a shot from the right corner to pull the Pirates within a goal at 2-1.

"That was an ego booster for her, and she needed it," Perryville coach Stacie Sargent said about Gremaud. "No one was going to get it. She just chipped it in on the back side."

It took just more than two minutes for the Pirates to even the score. Megan Moldenhauer booted a pass up the field and into the box, where Schremp deposited a low shot into the left corner.

"We knew we needed to come out harder than we were and try to win more balls," Schremp said about the second half.

Perryville (10-5) just missed taking the lead 30 seconds later when the Pirates sent a ball through the box and to the far post, but the ball barely scooted across the end line before they could tap it into an open goal.

The tied score didn't last long. Perryville finally took the lead after earning a free kick. Shea Leible used the wind to help sail a ball into the box, and Poplar Bluff freshman goalie Courtney Raulston, who was making her first varsity start, couldn't control it. Schremp was there to clean up the trash for her second goal.

The wind played all kinds of tricks with the ball. Perryville played into the wind in the first half, and one shot from the right side looked destined to fly well over the goal. Both teams gave up on the ball, except the wind caught it and blew it back inbounds to the left of Poplar Bluff's goal and had to be cleared.

"We weren't there because where did we think it was going?" Sargent said. "I probably shouldn't be mad, but at some point you have to realize you have to hustle all the time. The goalie thought it was out, and we probably could have had an easy ball there."

Poplar Bluff coach Derek Reasons said he stressed the importance of following every ball because of the steady wind.

"You can't assume that any ball is going to be out of bounds or it's going to be dead," he said. "You have to assume that it's going to stay in bounds. The factors with the wind are a huge issue. It seems like girls have a hard time judging balls in the air."

Perryville senior Morgan Franklin admitted it took a few minutes to accurately judge the effect the wind would have on a kick.

"We just needed to take it into consideration how we did kick our balls," she said. "We really weren't taking it into consideration there for a while then we picked up on the fact that the wind did play into it."

Poplar Bluff (10-8) did an excellent job of using the wind in the first half. Allie Pattillo corralled a throw-in from Miranda Burroughs and booted it off Perryville goalie Natalie Bauwens and into the goal less than seven minutes into the game for the 1-0 lead.

Poplar Bluff kept applying pressure in the first half with the aid of the breeze. Allie Thomas doubled the Mules' lead when she took a great cross into the middle and beat Bauwens with 1 minute, 29 seconds left before halftime for a 2-0 lead.

"I felt two was enough," Reasons said. "Clearly wind was a factor. ... I felt like our lack of motivation, lack of aggressiveness going for the ball, that was the deciding factor in the game. Wind can be a factor and an issue and things like that, but Perryville did a great job of taking the momentum and running with it."

Perryville senior midfielder Sam Amberger played a big role in the second-half turnaround by winning numerous balls in the air, which the Pirates used to generate offensive chances.

"If there was one big factor that I saw, they started winning more of the 50-50 balls and second balls," Reasons said. "They were winning those, and whenever that takes place, usually the momentum will always swing, no matter who you're playing."

Franklin said the 2-0 halftime deficit never fazed the Pirates.

"We've always been a second-half team this whole entire year," she said.