Dover girls soccer opens season with shutout victory

Saturday afternoon, the Dover Tornadoes hosted the visiting St. Clairsville Red Devils. The weather wasn’t the most cooperative today with two weather delays in the first half, but the girls figured out how to work around it. In the first half, Carley Noretto took the pressure off the team early with a goal in the first three minutes of the game off a nice pass, an assist, from Emilyn Feller. Twelve minutes later we were able to get another goal off a nice through ball by Carley Noretto to Kenzie Wright who beat the keeper to the back post. After the first rain delay, after a couple of nice saves by St. Clairsville’s keeper which led to the ball bouncing around in the box for Ansley Bollon to fire a quick shot past the keeper for our third and final goal of the first half.

Going into the second half after having a combined time of over an hour of delay, it almost felt like the game had restarted. Nonetheless, the girls were able to maintain their focus and complete the job. Ten minutes into the second half, Emilyn Feller ran onto a ball played nicely over the top by Cashlyn Harmon and ripped a shot that the keeper was unable to keep out of the back of the net for our fourth goal. Then, with about fifteen minutes left to go in the game, Cashlyn Harmon took a free kick that was well placed and took a favorable bounce for our fifth and final goal of the game. Elizabeth Lane and the defense composed of Rachel Pfieffer, Ava Zobel, and Peyton Grafe were able to secure their first shutout of the season, as well.

Overall, it was the perfect way to start the season minus the delays. We were able to shake off a recent loss to Jackson in a scrimmage on Tuesday, get an early goal, add more to secure a win, kept the shutout and everyone on the roster was able to get some quality playing time. We have a tough matchup to follow with us traveling to take on Madison High School on Tuesday.