GENOA — The Eastwood girls soccer team claimed the Division I championship at the 795 Cup on Sunday at Genoa High School, knocking off Delta 1-0 in the title match behind freshman Macy Shoemaker’s early second-half goal.

Reigning First Team All-Northern Buckeye Conference selection, Piper Sutton, assisted on the game-winner.

“This is always a great tournament,” Eastwood coach Julie Cross said. “We have a lot of our league teams here, so it’s kind of a fun outlook for the season, but I always tell the girls that the team we are today hopefully isn’t the team when we’re seeing those guys months from now.

“That’s the message we’re sending to them — that this was awesome, but now we have to build on it because everyone else is going to build and next time we see them, they’re going to look better.”

The Eagles opened bracket play with a 1-0 win over Riverdale White in the quarterfinals Saturday afternoon, which set up a semifinal meeting with a familiar rival, Woodmore.

Eastwood and Woodmore then battled to a scoreless tie through regulation on Sunday morning before the Eagles won in penalty kicks.

In pool play, Eastwood went 2-0-1 to win Group J, knocking off both Springfield and Kalida by 2-0 scores before tying Anthony Wayne White 1-1.

In total, Eastwood’s defense allowed just one goal in regulation over six matches in the three-day event.

“I’m fortunate we had a crew of about 19 most of the day so that helps to have fresh legs to put in,” Cross said. “I played all 19 of my girls for all six games, so everybody contributed fairly even playing minutes.

“That’s pretty impressive, freshmen through seniors. We’re giving everybody a shot, see who plays well together, (and at) different positions. We want to see different people in. I’m super proud of the group.”

Cross said the team has high expectations this year despite losing eight seniors. The Eagles have went 31-5-3 in her first two seasons and advanced all the way to the regional finals last year.

“We had a talented team last year, so I think that’s kind of the culture of the program,” she said. “It’s the expectation. So, even though we have only two seniors, I think they have the expectation that we’re going to continue to build this program and build on the success we’ve had the past couple seasons.”

This weekend’s success provides hope for the season ahead considering the team has had just three practices together before Friday’s opening games.

With multi-sport athletes and basketball preseason scrimmages, Cross likes to keep June lighter soccer-wise. July is when the team gets together, and they still have vacations and people involved in different things.

“I honestly don’t know if we’ve had a day where we’ve had the whole squad together yet,” Cross said. “I’m really proud of our results and the way we played together despite the fact we haven’t had a whole lot of preparation for it.”

At the end of the day, though, Cross knows that this is just a starting point for the team.

“I hope we win the league again and can make a deep tournament run, but my big thing to them this weekend was (let’s take this) one game at a time,” she said. “I didn’t know what the results would be. We won the tournament, but we’re still 0-0.

“At the end of the season, nobody cares about this tournament. It’s the state tournament. I think just building on each game we play and each practice (is what’s important).”

Bulldogs, Knights at 795 Cup

Two other Wood County girls teams, Rossford and Otsego, were also involved in the 795 Cup, which featured 20 teams from 18 schools.

Rossford, which went 1-1-1 in pool play, lost to Chardon in the quarterfinals of tournament play in Division II, but rebounded for wins over Van Buren and Oak Harbor to win the consolation championship.

Otsego went 0-3 in pool play, but defeated Cory-Rawson 6-2 in a Division III quarterfinal. They were then defeated by Port Clinton, 3-2, but responded with a 6-1 win over Toledo Central Catholic to close the event.