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Badger girls soccer overcomes Lordstown, 5-2

LORDSTOWN — Coaches often say that injuries should never be used as an excuse.

Still, “what could have been” does come into play when your top player, Lordstown’s Lexie Ensign, who scored 32 goals last season and was named second-team All-State in Division III, is keeping stats instead of creating them.

Badger isn’t a slouch of a team either, as Hunter Bengala and Eve Flowers had two goals apiece in the Braves’ 5-2 win over Lordstown in Northeastern Athletic Conference play.

“It was definitely a back-and-forth game, but I felt good about how we were controlling the ball,” Badger coach Kenneth Donaldson said. “We probably could have connected passes a little bit better, but we crossed the ball the way we needed to, to get them shifting and get the opportunities to push the ball.”

Badger (5-3, 4-0) got on the scoreboard just 1:15 into the match and limited a lot of what Lordstown (6-4, 5-2) was able to do effectively until Olivia Faler’s goal with 14:26 left in the first half tied the game at 1-all.

“We were flat,” Lordstown coach Matt Kresic said. “We started flat. We were nursing some key injuries. We had to do things a little different. We came out a little flat, a little nervous. That was more or less the key to that. We came out real flat.”

The key injury was that of Ensign, as her absence forced Kresic to change things up by moving Faler, who usually plays sweeper, to forward.

“It just didn’t feel like that first half we had anything going on the attack,” Kresic said. “We moved (Faler) into a different spot. It created some dividends real quick. It’s a matter of the other players we have up top are younger and don’t have that direct way of thinking.”

Still, Bengala scored her second goal with 7 minutes left in the first half to give the Braves a 2-1 lead.

Lordstown tied the game up on Faler’s second goal just 10 minutes into the second half. Instead of stealing momentum, the Braves responded with a goal one minute later from Flowers.

“Flowers ripped three goals from this corner,” Kresic said. “She ripped three shots from this angle and they were perfect shots. At the end of the day, there’s nothing you can do besides take away her space.”

WithBadger leading 3-2, the Red Devils had a few opportunities, but they missed a shot at the 31:36 mark that hit the crossbar and misplayed a pass that likely would have led to a clear shot on goal with 15 minutes left.

With 9 minutes remaining, Flowers hit a direct shot from the same corner that deflected off the goalie but was knocked in by Lordstown’s Grace Eastham on an own-goal to put Badger up 4-2.

“Grace is someone who has played soccer for two years,” Kresic said. “It’s one of those deals where she played a hell of a game until that point. When we brought her in in the first half, she really solidified the back line.”

The own-goal was crushing for Lordstown and what the Braves needed to stay undefeated in league play.

“That was definitely a relief for us,” Donaldson said. ” A one-point game is definitely easy to tie up. I think the own-goal gave us the confidence to sit back and relax and pass the ball around. I shifted some of my players back into the defensive line to shut down any shots and close those opportunities so we could control the game the rest of the way.”

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