By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

ELMORE — Woodmore secured a measure of revenge on Saturday, scoring once each half to produce a 2-0 win over Eastwood in a non-league girls soccer matchup.

“It’s a fun rivalry,” Eastwood coach Julie Cross said. “We enjoy playing against them. I don’t think we brought our best today. We are missing a couple players, but that’s not an excuse.

“The surface here is very different than ours. We’re very fortunate that our game field is super, super smooth, so I think we just had a hard time adjusting to that as far as passes and runs off the ball. But that’s something we need to get better at because we had 80 minutes to adjust.”

Over the past four years, the Eagles won two of three Division III postseason matchups between the two programs, including a 3-2 overtime victory in the district championship last year.

The Wildcats defeated Eastwood in the district semifinal two years ago, and the Eagles won the district title four years ago in a shootout.

With the new OHSAA divisional expansion, Eastwood competes in Division IV, while Woodmore is situated in Division V.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Cross said. “We kind of have a long-standing rivalry with them. In the past, it was always a battle between us and them in the league. With them no longer being (in the NBC), this is unfortunately the only time we’ll see them this year.”

Saturday’s matchup was a defensive battle for most of the first half.

Woodmore (3-1-1) had a shot hit the top right portion of the crossbar around 10 minutes in, while Eastwood’s Karly Wasserman had a shot go wide right just under 20 minutes in.

The Wildcats then got on the board with 6:07 left in the half on a shot from Kalle Heins that went into the top right corner of the net from left of the goal.

Senior Jordan Jensen, who had three saves in the first half for Eastwood in goal, was moved up top for the second half in an effort to give the Eagles a spark. Sophomore Kaitlin Abbey took over in goal.

“Jensen can be a threat up top,” Cross said. “We did that a little bit in our preseason while we were testing some things out, and she scored some goals. I just thought why not at that point. Kaitlyn is a great goalie. I had total faith in her putting her in net. I just wanted to bring a different energy up top, and I think we did.”

Abbey was active early on, saving a shot three minutes into the half before back-to-back shots from Woodmore went wide in the 12th and 13th minutes.

Jensen then made her impact offensively in the 15th minute, striking a left-footed shot on goal, but it was saved.

“When it’s your senior year, you have a different drive in every single game,” Cross said. “I don’t regret doing that change at all. Jordan did the job that we needed. Obviously it would have been cool if we could have gotten one on the board, but I think ultimately what I wanted was a different pressure level and energy up top, and I think she did that.”

One minute after Jensen’s shot, however, Willow Lewis scored Woodmore’s second goal.

“That was a combination of us diving in a little bit, not being as patient on defense as we could have been, and then they exposed us behind,” Cross said. “But ultimately I think team defense was a positive in this game. I think we played very well from front to back.

“I kind of switched a couple things up formation-wise because of personnel. So I’m proud of them for that. I think that they played very well from up top all the way to the back. I think we played well covering for each other and defending as a unit.”

Eastwood’s Riley Burtchin had two shots saved over the next 13 minutes, the first off a direct kick following a foul and the second after a foul with just under 12 minutes left.

Over the final 10 minutes, Abbey made a pair of saves before finishing with six in the half.

Taylor Hill was credited with both assists for Woodmore, who got nine saves from Kara Schneider in goal.

Eastwood is now 3-3-1.