NORTH VERNON — It took over 90 minutes for the Seymour and New Albany girls’ soccer teams to decide the outcome of the opening match in the Jennings County Class 3A Sectional Tuesday night.

The match was originally scheduled to start at 5 p.m., but the first kick was not made until 6:04 because the officials got caught up in traffic on Interstate 65 due to an accident.

Seymour coach Greg Musser said his team had several excellent opportunities to score but none of the Owls’ 9 shots in the first half, 5 shots in the second half or 2 shots in overtime, or their 5 corner kicks made it to the back of the net.

New Albany’s Aliya Utz shot from front left of the goal with 3:22 left in the second 7-minute overtime period.

The ball wasn’t kicked that hard, but hard enough that it got past Seymour sophomore goalie Elizabeth Trueblood for a 1-0 final.

Musser said he thought the ball skipped on the wet grass.

The Owls tried a cross with two minutes remaining and had a corner kick with 45 seconds remaining but neither ball came close to going in.

“They responded,” Musser said. “We challenged them before the game as we did before that Columbus East game. They battled and showed some heart. It’s a tough lesson to learn, learning in the last game of the year. We tried to tell them, tried to focus on finishes, and take care of opportunities in practices.

“It’s tough to simulate game-like scenarios in practice. Unfortunately we had three or four opportunities there inside the box that we just didn’t put away. You don’t take advantage of those, and an unlucky scenario happens and it costs you a game.”

Owls Lillie Wessel and Haley Westfall had shots in the first 4:10 of the contest.

New Albany finally attempted a shot 10 minutes into the contest.

Seymour’s Paige Mora crossed the ball to Westfall with 18:50 left in the first half, and Westfall had a strong attack with 1:22 remaining in the first half but Bulldog goalie Anasha Crowdus made a diving stop.

Eliza Cash had a shot from in front of the goal at the 27-minute mark of the second half but the ball sailed over the goal, and Nicole Rebber had another strong attack with 9:06 remaining that Crowdus stopped.

“It’s a hard lesson,” Musser said. “We learned a hard lesson last year in the sectionals and we had to learn another hard one this year for the girls coming back, but I feel for these seniors. They went to battle for me.”

The Owls lost to the Bulldogs 4-0 in a Hoosier Hills Conference match on Sept. 9. Musser said his team was missing three starters that match and he expected a tougher battle this time around, which is exaclty what he got.

Seymour finished the season 7-9-1.