Marred with the ill-favored injury bug, the Central Lady Bulldogs (10-3) showed that they were still more than capable of putting together a full 80 minutes of quality play on Thursday – knocking off the Lebanon Lady Jackets (7-12) by a 3-1 final in Springfield.
Although her team came away with the gutsy victory, the primary thing on Central head coach Chris Welch's mind was the challenge her team was going through in terms of trying to get healthy as six different Lady Bulldogs were battling with some type of physical issue at game time.
“It's a win, but it's tough because we're struggling with some injury,” Welch said after the match. “Nothing to take away from Lebanon at all, but we're struggling just a tiny little bit.”
Putting those struggles in the rear-view mirror, at least for a moment, was midfielder Danielle Barstead, who waited all of 1 minute and 28 seconds into the game to tally the first goal for Central.
Being in the right place at the right time, the scintillating sophomore read a pass perfectly from senior teammate Angel Laukon and struck the ball into the net for a close-range score – breathing life into a Lady Bulldogs squad that had just trudged through a challenging tournament in Branson over the weekend.
“It definitely gave us that extra boost we needed because we've been pretty tired and we came straight from a tournament to here,” Barstead said. “But 1-0 is still a scary score.”
15 minutes later, Central's one-goal lead would be stretched to two when another sophomore, Ahriana Eyerman, connected from 20 yards out.
The Lady Jackets would strike back to cut the lead in half at the 7:32 mark of the first half on a goal by senior Becca Tucker, much to the chagrin of Welch, who saw moments when her team let its foot off the proverbial gas after gaining a 2-0 advantage.
“It's almost one of those psychological things where you say we can sit back just a little bit, but you really can't,” Welch said. “We did and then we didn't. It was really kind of back and forth.”
Lebanon flirted with tying the game with 22:30 to play when junior forward Lexi Wapelhorst narrowly missed from 18 yards out as the ball sailed just inches to the right of the goal.
“From my angle, it was in,” Lebanon head coach Matt Jernigan said of Wapelhorst's near miss. “She's got 101 goals in her career and it looked like 102, but it was just a little bit wide.”
Midfielder Renon Kirkpatrick tacked on an insurance goal with 8:16 remaining to make sure Lebanon's comeback bid was finished for good, but the Lady Bulldogs were unable to make it through the match without another loss of a player as senior defender Elon Smith exited play in the second half with an apparent left ankle sprain.
Despite another injury to a key piece for Central, the Lady Bulldogs are doing what they can to turn their situation into a positive as districts approach.
“It gives us that motivation to keep going and to win for them,” added Barstead. “That way, when they come back, we're still in [a district title race] and they're that extra set of legs we need.”
Central battles in the Camdenton Tournament starting Friday, while Lebanon travels to Neosho on Saturday.
