By Staff

Ozark falls to state-ranked Eureka in home tournament title game

The Ozark girls’ soccer team suffered its first loss of the season in Saturday’s Lady Tiger Classic title game against Eureka on its home field.

Despite facing the state-ranked Class 4 team, the Lady Tigers came out ready to play.

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The No. 2 Eureka Wildcats were put to work in the first half with Ozark’s virtually equal amount of possession and strong defense. Not to mention, junior goalkeeper Ally Barb had several impressive saves.

Ozark head coach Tom Davidson said of Barb, “She made some great saves. She’s been like that all year.”

With Barb and the rest of the Ozark team battling for the title, Eureka head coach Gary Schneider saw what the home team was capable of.

“Ozark’s a really tough team,” he said. “They play a unique formation. We really struggled against it in the first half. Part of it was this wind, but a lot of it goes to them and their formation. It was tough for us to adjust.”

Scoreless at halftime, Schneider had a little chat with his girls in the hopes of getting on the board.

“We made adjustments at halftime,” Schneider said. “I told them to stop kicking the ball. We just had to start possessing the ball and make good things happen, and we were able to make good things happen quickly in the second half.”

Very quickly.

In the second minute of the second half, Jessica Haller scored, assisted by Blythe Beldner, to grab a 1-0 lead.

Another two minutes went by before another Eureka goal was scored, this time by Morgan Hollenbeck.

In the 19th minute, Olivia Osterhage fired one into the back of the net to bring the final score up to 3-0.

Davidson said, “They came out in that second half and for whatever reason they were confident and jumped all over us. I’d like that have that first 10 minutes of the second half back.”

They may have been second best, but Davison is looking toward a bright future for his team.

“The girls were mad. It’s our first loss of the season. So they’re upset, but I’m not. I look at it as a learning experience and, okay, how do we get to that level? Hopefully things will get better and they’ll come back with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder.”

Davidson added, “To be able to see this here, in our own place, and see what it looks like, we can make adjustments for later.”

Ozark (9-1) will get the chance to put those adjustments to the test when it heads south on Hwy. 65 to battle the Branson Lady Pirates in conference play 5 p.m. Tuesday.