The Merrill girls soccer team continues to make strides, still losing twice to Valley teams last week, but hanging within at least four goals each time.
They dropped a 4-0 game to Wis. Rapids on Tuesday, then fell 3-0 to Wausau West on Thursday. Both games were at the MARC.
In Saturday’s Antigo Invite, the Jays fell 2-0 to Ashland in the opener before picking up their first win of the season with a 2-1 triumph over their hosts.
“Antigo is a team that is very similar to us,” MHS coach Steph Nelson said. “We started out extremely strong and hard. We had so much offense going for us, but their goalie snuffed out a lot before we even got a shot off. They had a few decent opportunities, but defense played well again and allowed for us to keep the ball on our offensive half.
“It was really exciting to see the girls finally put the ball in the goal after working so hard to get there all season.”
Ashley Millenbah took a pass from Sydney Harris, drove toward the goal and fired a far-post shot in the 15th minute for a 1-0 lead. In the 29th minute, Hanna Cohrs corralled a pinball and fed it to Anna Litschauer, who also scored it far-post.
“Both were well-earned and it really made us excited because all season Will (Bialecki) and I have been telling the girls to shoot far post and they finally did it,” Nelson said. “They executed the runs perfectly and were patient with their shots. It’s an exciting thing to see.”
The Red Robins cut it to 2-1 in the 48th minute of the 60-minute tourney game, but the Jays held from there.
“We weren’t too worried,” Nelson said. “We knew we could continue shutting them down and, offensively, we could continue to make advances on the goal.”
Antigo out-shot Merrill 10-6 and 6-4 on goal. Taylor Hudzinski made five saves.
A controversial penalty kick gave Ashland its first goal in the 27th minute.
“Madeline Klippel had a very nice and clean take on the ball in the box and the girl fell; refs gave her a PK,” Nelson said. “Second half, we put a lot more pressure on them and while we didn’t take anything that counted for a shot, we did force two corner kicks, and we had the ball on our offensive half a lot of the time.”
Hudzinski had 6 saves.
Hanging with the Warriors
West worked a 2-0 in the first half of Thursday’s game with goals in the 17th and 38th minutes. Jessy Wiskofske reached a hattrick in the 60th minute of the second half.
“We started out the game a little flat,” Nelson said. “We weren’t doing the simple things like going to the ball, making good passes, looking where we were passing. I love the way they looked in the second half. We put a lot more offensive pressure on than we did in the first half. It’s exactly what Will and I have been trying to get them to do all year.”
Hudzinske had 6 saves. Merrill was out-shot 18-1.
Rapid effect
The Jays gave up three goals in the first 5:51 of last Tuesday’s game, then held Rapids to one goal in 74:09. Four different girls scored.
Hudzinski managed 11 saves. The Jays were out-shot 24-2.
MHS is 0-12 overall (0-10 WVC).