Ontario shuts out Clear Fork in MOAC clash of girls soccer titans
BELLVILLE — Ontario knew how big Tuesday's Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference girls soccer game against Clear Fork was.
Traditionally, the winner of the annual meeting goes on to win the league championship, and all signs point to 2022 being no different. The Warriors took that control of the MOAC title race with a 3-0 victory.
Senior defender Adi Turnbaugh, who helped the Warriors collect their fourth shutout of the season, recognized just how important it was to beat Clear Fork and what it meant for their hopes of winning another MOAC championship.
"For sure," she said. "That is definitely the goal, but we have to take it game by game and make sure we come out with a win every time we take the field."
The Warriors got on the board early when Elaina Seif found a rebound at her feet and cleaned up the scrum with 31:41 left in the first half to get the scoring started. It was the most Seif-like goal of the season.
"We call her the trash girl," Ontario coach Larry Atkinson said with a laugh. "Any trash left in front of the goal, she is going to clean up and put it in the back of the net, and that is what she did tonight."
The score remained 1-0 at the half before freshman Hattie Yugovich scored two second-half goals, one at the 23:10 mark when she got behind the defense for an easy one and another at 4:17 when she lofted a shot from 30 yards out just over the fingertips of the Clear Fork keeper for a sensational goal.
"I got the ball at my feet, picked my head up and saw the keeper was out a little bit and decided, why not?" Yugovich said. "I was pretty happy to see it go in because I wasn't expecting it to, but it did. That brought the nerves down a little bit because they were down at our goal a lot towards the end, so that one was some nice insurance."
Clear Fork (6-1-2, 2-1) had plenty of opportunities but it was another night when the Colts got a lot of shots on frame, 25 to be exact, but couldn't get one through for a goal. It was similar to a match they played against Lexington earlier in the year when they had 38 shots but ended the contest in a 0-0 tie.
"I feel like possessionally, we were sound," Clear Fork coach Brittany Bechtel said. "We took a ton of shots but we just struggled to put one in the back of the net. Players who can finish put a lot of time into working on it, and that is what some of our players need to do. It is all about putting in the work outside of our practice time, and we have stressed that.
"Finishing-wise, they have to decide if they want that piece to their game or not. We are taking lots of shots and we just have nothing to show for it. If they put in the time, I feel like when sectional and districts come around, we can be a contender."
With matches in which shots just don't seem to fall, Bechtel starts to worry about her team's confidence but the Colts always seem to respond.
"I was afraid of that," Bechtel said. "We played Galion in a 40-minute game and we were struggling to shoot and score against a packed box, and when we had a scoreless tie against Lexington with 35 shots and 18 on frame and nothing goes in, I was worried about their confidence. But then we came out Saturday against Bishop Hartley (a 7-0 victory) and they lit it up. So that was great to see that level of confidence."
Despite the shutout and now being on the outside looking in on the MOAC title race, Bechtel said she still sees improvement from game to game in her team.
"We are a much better team than we were Game 1," she said. "And we are getting better. We want to play our best soccer in October and November if we can make it that far. We just have to keep drilling away and we will be in a good place come tournament time."
The Warriors (8-1, 3-0) pitched their fourth shutout in the last five games and have allowed just nine goals all year. Atkinson said he is excited about how well his defense is playing recently, including a 1-0 shutout of St. Mary's Memorial on Sept. 3.
"Our defense has improved each game," he said. "That is all we are trying to do. The defense will keep us in games while we figure things out offensively with our young talent. If we can keep the other team out of the goal, we will be in great shape."
Offensively, the Warriors have a pair of freshmen up top in Adi Pittman and Yugovich who have combined for 28 goals in the team's first nine games. They have burst onto the scenes and continue to get better and better as the varsity minutes pile up. On Tuesday, it was Yugovich who shined while Seif, a sophomore, added to the legend of the young Warriors.
"They are starting to understand what we are looking for and what we expect," Atkinson said. "They do play club, but it is a little bit different. We ask for Hattie to play a 10 or a 1 just to get some offense when she plays a 6 on her club team. It has taken us a while. We watch a lot of film with her and Adi Pittman of previous games just to get them to understand why some shots fall off the mark. We try to get them to understand the angles to get better shots. But the biggest thing I have noticed from the young kids is that even when we get down like we did 1-0 to Lexington, they do not give up."
Turnbaugh, just one of three seniors on the roster and the one true captain, said she was proud of the way her team played for an entire 80 minutes on both sides of the pitch.
"Everyone together played collectively as a team and game 100% effort," she said. "Because of that effort, we came out with a win. That win is huge. We still have games to play and we have to come out and play as hard as we can to come out with wins, but to beat Clear Fork, our rivals, is huge."
Yugovich agreed.
"It is a cross-county rival and a great team so we knew we needed to come out and play well," Yugovich said. "We knew it was going to be hard and they would be physical. Scoring early really pumped us up and calmed our nerves at the same time and allowed us to slow down and play our game."
Ontario is off until Monday when it hosts Galion in another MOAC game while Clear Fork hosts Rocky River on the same night.
jfurr@gannett.com
740-244-9934
Twitter: @JakeFurr11
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Ontario beats Clear Fork Colts in MOAC girls soccer match
