By AMELIO RODRIGUEZ
Dowagiac Daily News

CASSOPOLIS – First-year varsity program Cassopolis showed that it is not your average inaugural team.

The Rangers gave Lakeland Conference power Brandywine all it could handle before falling 1-0 Wednesday night.

These two teams battled to a 0-0 tie last season, and this game looked to be headed in the same direction as the first half came to a close with the game tied.

The Rangers had some opportunities to score early in the first half but couldn’t take advantage of them. The Bobcats started to gain some momentum heading towards the half, but they couldn’t capitalize on their chances either.

Brandywine carried the momentum into the second half and just over one minute into the second half they capitalized on a defensive lapse by the Rangers and senior Michaela Greer was able to knock one past goal keeper Molly Mroz for the 1-0 lead.

Leading by a goal with just over 25 minutes to play, Brandywine senior Kaley Jones received a red card for unsportsmanlike conduct and was ejected from the game. The Bobcats would have to play the rest of the half down a player.

“It was a great effort by the girls with a man down. They played with ten pretty much the whole second half, and the girls really played hard in that last 10 minutes,” Bobcat coach Evan Winkler said.

Both teams battled down the stretch, and each team had chances to score, but neither team could put the ball in the net. The Bobcats had a couple of great opportunities on breakaways only to be denied by some great saves from their freshman goalkeeper Mroz.

“Molly was fantastic in goal, and that was probably as good a performance as I have ever seen by a girls goalie in high school soccer. It was just outstanding,” Cassopolis coach Oli Olafsson noted. “She saved a penalty kick, the follow up kick and even the third follow up kick. Most goalies would have just stayed down after the initial save, but she didn’t and she had great saves on a couple of breakaway. She was spot on and definitely our player of the match.”

The Bobcats held off the Rangers and gave Cassopolis its first loss of the season.

The Bobcats face Dowagiac on Friday night, while the Rangers will play Coloma next week.

Brandywine…1
Cassopolis…0
Halftime score
Brandywine 0, Cassopolis 0

Second half
BW – Michaela Greer 42nd minute