By TOM NYHUIS
Niles Daily Star

It was a game of momentum swings, some really good defense and missed opportunities in Wednesday afternoon’s Lakeland Conference girls varsity soccer action.

After 80 minutes of play at Brandywine High School the host Bobcats and the Lady Bucks from Buchanan played to a scoreless draw.

Each team had its opportunities with break away shot attempts but the ball would go high over the net or wide and the shots at the goal that were on line could not find their way past each respective team’s goal keeper, Shelby Welbaum for the Lady Bucks and Carlie Newman for the Cat’s.

“It would be nice to have overtime, 10 minutes at least. Then we could see if we would have a different outcome where we don’t have to have a tie,” Brandywine coach Evan Winkler said.

Lakeland Conference play games have no overtime, and it goes in the record books as a tie.
“This game was so evenly matched if we did go into overtime it could have gone on for quite a while,” Buchanan coach Brian Pruett said of the outcome. “We are going to see them again. We are going to get ready. They are a great team and we are getting better and we’ll see how the next game goes. I’m sure each team is going to be improved and it will be a better match than today.”

Pruett thought Brandywine seemed to have the advantage in the first half controlling the ball with aggressive offensive and defensive play but was unable to find the back of the net by playing good defense. Winkler saw it as a more evenly matched game.

“It definitely was a back and forth game,” he said. “It was like we had the momentum for a while and then they had it and the same thing in the second half. Our effort tonight was so much better than Monday’s when we played Edwardsburg in a 5-2 loss. We played better defense and we really concentrated on not reaching in, (with the foot) on defense and we did a better job more consistently and were tighter on our marks. So we played better team defense.”

“In that first half I thought Brandywine dominated” Pruett said. “They were playing harder then us, and they were winning the ball. I told the girls they were going to have to come out in the second half and play harder and I felt the second half was a complete opposite. We controlled the ball and we had a lot more shots and we dominated. It was the tale of two halves. We both had quality shots and both of us had pretty good defense and pretty good goalies.”

Brandywine changed up its offense with about 15 to play moving Nicole Newman up to forward.

“Nicole had some nice shots but some of those went over the goal and (Michaela) Greer had some nice break aways where she just couldn’t get it on goal the right way. Missed opportunities right there. If we put those in, now we have a chance to win,” Winkler said.

Buchanan…0
Brandywine…0

Shots on goal
Buchanan 14
Brandywine 9

Saves
Buchanan 3
Brandywine 8

Varsity records
Buchanan  5-5-3, 3-0-2 Lakeland; Brandywine 5-5-2, 3-1-1 Lakeland