Seymour’s Natalie Pena (15) and Kate Connell and Jennings County’s Zoey Ison battle for possession of the ball during Tuesday’s match. Pena had a goal in the Owls’ 7-1 win.
Six minutes into Tuesday’s girl’s soccer match between Seymour and Jennings County, the Owls had a corner kick.
Lillie Wessel kicked the ball to Haley Westfall in front of the goal, and she scored on a perfectly executed play.
Westfall went on to score two more goals and had an assist, and Wessel scored two goals in addition to her assist to spark the Owls to a 7-1 Hoosier Hills Conference win.
Seymour coach Greg Musser said that play set the tone for his team.
“We had a game plan coming in and we knew we might be fighting some weather today and things like that, so we knew we needed to get off to a quick start. That was challenge number one to the girls in our game plan and I thought they accepted that very well,” he said. “It was nice to see the girls come out and play hard, play fast and get the W.”
Wessel recovered a loose ball and scored at the 19:42 mark, then Westfall added goals at 12:55 and 1:29 to make it a 4-0 score at the half.
Wessel said scoring three goals feels good, especially coming back from an ACL injury last season.
“(Monday) in practice we did something new and it kind of helped us work through the middle and work through the kinks and got us working together,” she said. “Our first goal set the tone for the rest of the game. I really enjoyed watching us, and being on the field with these ladies this game was a very good bounce back.”
Musser said, “The emphasis of our training session (Monday) was how to dominate the middle and attack through our diamonds and stuff, and I thought the girls took that to heart, and had a great first half doing that.
“We’ve been, like many teams this year, battling injuries, covid and things like that. It’s nice to get our team in full health again just to see what we can really do. That’s the team I know we’ve been missing just because we’ve been missing players.”
Paige Mora made it a 5-0 match at 32:45 of the second half before Wessel scored her second goal and Natalie Pena closed Seymour’s scoring with 4:44 remaining.
Maddy McIntosh avoided the Panthers getting shut out when she scored with 22 seconds left in the match.
Musser said he liked the Owls’ passing as Rachel Lenart, Kate Connell, Sam Cardenas and Eliza Cash had one assist apiece.
“I was very happy with our passing, especially the first half,” Musser said. “They were working combinations very well. Typically, we fall into habits of just playing one or two passes and knocking it forward.
“Today, I thought we were combining four or five plus strings of passes, and finding opportunities there which I was very happy with.”
Seymour had nine shots on goal in the first half to none for the Panthers. The Owls finished with 16 shots to two for the Panthers.
Seymour senior goalie Grace Schrader was in goal the first 69 minutes of the match and was credited with two saves.
“They’ve got a couple talented players that they like to go through and we were making sure we were up in their back pockets,” Musser said. “We lacked that a little bit in a weekend loss at East Central, a big, fast aggressive team. We weren’t playing tough-tight on them and that was an emphasis today and I thought we were pretty good there as well.”
The Owls are 2-2-1 in the HHC.
Musser said, “You always want to peak during the end of the season and that performance, coupled with a couple (wins) earlier I think we’re treading in the right direction, getting our team healthy, starting to jell a little bit on some roles and responsibilities.
“Unfortunately, we missed some people during some conference games, and that hurt, but it also gave an opportunity for some other girls to get some minutes and I think that just makes us stronger for going into sectional.”
Seymour (6-7-1) will travel to Franklin Saturday morning.