GIRLS SOCCER

Lady Hounds suffer first game jitters in loss to Notre Dame

Nikes down Fort Madison 3-1 in season opener

Fort Madison Hadley Wolfe moves the ball into position for a shot in the first half of the Hounds 3-1 loss to Burlington Notre Dame.
Fort Madison Hadley Wolfe moves the ball into position for a shot in the first half of the Hounds 3-1 loss to Burlington Notre Dame.
Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC
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BURLINGTON — Fort Madison’s girls soccer team was playing its first game of the season.
Notre Dame-West Burlington already had played once.
And that made a difference.
The Bloodhounds’ 3-1 loss to the Nikes wasn’t the beginning coach Carrie Burken wanted to start the season, but it was a lesson to build on in the opening week.
“Especially at the beginning of the first half, we were playing way below our standard — really, way below what I’d seen in practice,” Burken said. “You could see first-game nerves. People who played all last year, played together, just weren’t doing what they did last year. I think it’s just first game, new season, some new people in there, it wasn’t going to be great.
“This is Notre Dame’s second game. They got all of those nerves out, and they were ready to go.”
The Nikes (2-0) got all of their goals from Julianna Hill in the first half, including two in the first 26 minutes. That left the Bloodhounds scrambling.
“Just mentality wise, it felt draining, especially for our defense, which didn’t give up a lot of goals last year,” Burken said. “To give up two quick goals in the first game, that feels a little unnerving, a little unsettling, like ‘What are we doing wrong?’”
Fort Madison got its lone goal with 9:40 left on the first half when Hadley Wolfe scored off a rebound after Halle Menke’s shot hit the crossbar and came down just in front of the net.
But whatever momentum the Bloodhounds was gone when Hill scored again. Her shot hit the crossbar and the rebound was ruled to have hit behind the goal line before Fort Madison goalkeeper Taylor Johnson grabbed it.
“It was huge for momentum,” Burken said. “Being down 3-1 is a lot different from being down 2-1, because with 2-1, you’re thinking you get that next goal (in the second half) then maybe you get it to overtime or get another goal to win. So, it was a completely different mindset for us. A huge momentum changer, because they didn’t score in the second half. I felt like it changed the game, but you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to move on.”
The Bloodhounds held the Nikes scoreless in the second half, but couldn’t get a shot on offense.
“I thought we settled in a lot more (in the second half),” Burken said. “The tough part about soccer is you don’t have timeouts. You can pull players off to talk to them, but it’s hard to do that when you need them out there. So you can talk to individual players, but you can’t get a group of them together and set something up, work on some things.”
Burken thought her team’s communication was better in the second half.
“Communication comes from being comfortable in what you’re doing,” she said. “If you’re too focused on where you need to be and what you’re doing, you can’t communicate with your teammates because you’re too focused on that.”
Johnson had 14 saves for the Bloodhounds, who play Friday at Iowa City Liberty.

Fort Madison, Burlington Notre Dame, soccer, girls, sports, varsity, Hounds, Bloodhounds, Pen City Current, Carrie Burken

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