Bowling Green senior forward Maddy Adams and junior forward Ella Koester are hoping to play college soccer when their high school careers are over.
They made a good case for it during BG’s Senior Night Wednesday in a steady rain at Bobcat Stadium.
Adams scored a school-record five goals as the Bobcats routed Napoleon, 9-0, in a Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division match-up.
While Adams, who has 27 points on 13 goals and five assists this season, is setting school records in scoring, Koester is closing in on school assist records. That was on full display in Wednesday’s win.
“We did tonight. She got a lot of the assists,” Adams said. “She’s almost there and will probably have the most assists of the season, but without her I could not get all the goals, and without her and both of us working together so much.
“We’ve grown a lot through this season and I think we’ve came together and figured it out,” Adams continued.
Koester, who has eight goals and nine assists this season, says it’s about playing as a unit.
“Really, it is just teamwork,” Koester said. “You can’t be selfish because you’re not going to get anywhere being selfish. I need Maddy and Maddy needs me, and we need every person on our team.”
Koester scored three goals Wednesday, all in the first half, and Allison Hover had the other goal for the Bobcats, while senior goalkeeper Ella Billiot needed just four saves as she led the BG defense to its sixth shutout of the season.
Koester and junior midfielder Claire Rieman had two assists apiece and Adams and junior midfielders Kennedy Bosworth and Allison Wiles had one assist each.
BG outshot Napoleon 43-4, including 27-4 in shots on goal. Napoleon junior goalkeeper Jillian Richard and sophomore keeper Olivia Foor combined for 18 saves.
The Bobcats improve to 7-3-2 overall and 6-2 in the NLL with both losses coming to league leader Clay (8-4-1, 7-0). Napoleon falls to 3-9-2 and 2-5 in the NLL.
Napoleon coach Chris Speiser says it has been a work in progress for his young team.
“BG is a good team. It might not have looked like it, 9-0, and they beat us 8-0 earlier, but I think we played a little bit better today,” Speiser said.
“We had some looks and stuff like that. We are kind of a young team and kind of immature. We’ve got two seniors and one of them is a foreign exchange student, so we’re super young, super inexperienced.
“I think half of our girls are brand new to the program. We’re just building every week just trying to get to the end of the season, make sure they are learning, getting better and growing every week,” Speiser continued.
Senior celebration
For BG, the evening was about honoring seven seniors — Billiot, Adams, forward Sophia Burtnett and defensemen Lola Thompson, Caitlin Lee, Alaina Mormile, and Maggie Layne.
Burtnett is injured, but still started. She kicked off and immediately left the game as soon as the ball was kicked out of bounds, but the Bobcats are expecting her to return by the end of the season.
All seven BG seniors started Wednesday along with four juniors.
“We’ve got some really great seniors,” BG coach Erika Kimple said. “We’ve got Ella in goal and she has been solid back there and she doesn’t make too many mistakes.
“Maddy running through the middle and we can see her ball control and then we’ve got Lola and Alaina, who mostly play defense although Lola has been playing a little bit of forward, then we’ve got Maggie and Caitlin as well, who have been really productive helping on the field also.
“The other one is Sophia Burtnett, who is unfortunately out with an ACL tear. Hopefully we’ll be able to get her back in about a week, but she’s been great with everybody’s morale.”
Adams said the seniors, and others, had to step up to fill big shoes that graduated last year.
“It is all a lovely group. We all love each other very much,” Adams said. “I think we have a good group of seniors and it will be sad for us to be graduating, and we still have more games to play, but it’s been a really good season so far.
“We had a lot of seniors graduate this year, but I think our freshman class stepped up, and all of us stepped up and we came together and worked together a lot. It’s been lots of practices, lots of communication has just gotten us this far,” Adams continued.
Koester, who will have to play without her scoring partner, Adams, next year, added about the seniors, “They are just great. I am going to miss every single one.”
