Hounds get home win over Mt. Pleasant

FORT MADISON - The outcome wasn’t in doubt, but there was one thing the Fort Madison girls soccer team wanted to do before Monday’s match with Mount Pleasant ended — get Charley Huebner a goal.
Huebner, a junior who has been a big part of the Bloodhounds’ defense throughout her time on varsity, is splitting time between soccer and track this spring, and coach Carrie Burken thought with the Bloodhounds well on their way to the win, she would move Huebner up to a forward spot to get her a chance to score.
And with a little over seven minutes remaining, Huebner scored what turned out to be the final goal in the Bloodhounds’ 9-0 win at the Baxter Sports Complex.
“Since I’m a defensive player, I don’t really get any chances to score, so it was kind of cool,” Huebner said, smiling.
Huebner liked it so much, she had a chance at a second goal in the closing two minutes, but missed.
“She can’t get too greedy,” senior Halle Menke joked.
Burken said getting a goal for Huebner was important.
“Charley’s a great kid,” Burken said. “She's just, overall, just such a hard worker. She’ll do anything for the team. The fact that she's doing track and soccer this year, I think that just helps both programs a lot. She's just so athletic. And any time you can reward someone who's always at everything, that works so hard that does whatever you ask, you look for ways to do it.”
“I’m not going to be here Thursday (when the Bloodhounds play at Fairfield), so when I got moved up front, it allowed the players back on defense to play together without me” Huebner said. “But it was fun to get to score.”
“That was so fun,” Menke said. “Charley’s such a character. I’m glad we were able to get her a goal.”
It was the perfect end to a happy night for the Bloodhounds (4-1 overall, 3-1 Southeast Conference), who bounced back from last Thursday’s 5-0 loss to conference leader Burlington.
“I think it kind of resets our mood,” Huebner said. “It shows what we’re capable of doing.”
“I liked how we made adjustments,” Burken said. “I think it took us a bit to get going to the game, to get mentally engaged, and then after a bit, I liked a lot better how we were doing passes, connecting passes, looking more for space and open teammates.”
“It was a good win, but we know we have more work to do,” Menke said.
Hadley Wolfe opened the scoring 6 ½ minutes into the match with two goals in the span of 42 seconds. Menke followed with her first goal of the night, and of the season, to put Fort Madison up 3-0 with 25 minutes left in the first half.
“I really haven’t been producing much this season, so it was good to see that first one go in,” Menke said. “Hadley set me up with a great pass.”
Emma Snaadt and Reilynn Turnbull scored later in the first half to give the Bloodhounds a 5-0 halftime lead.
Snaadt and Molly Schulte opened the second half with goals in the first 14 minutes, then Menke scored again with 15 minutes left.
The Bloodhounds’ offense battered the Panthers (0-5, 0-4). They had 23 shots on goal.
“We need to work on our finishing,” Burken said. “We had a lot of opportunities that we missed tonight.”
Menke and Wolfe each had two assists. Lake, Turnbull and Faith Ward each had one.