By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

NORTHWOOD — The tandem of Kaylee Eberly and Cailyn Lorenz combined for seven goals Friday night to lead the Otsego girls soccer team to a 7-1 win on the road over Northwood in the season opener for both teams.

“We saw decent offensive production, and a good defensive shape,” Otsego head coach Isaac Puffer said. “That’s what we were looking for, and that’s what we saw tonight.”

Lorenz put the Knights on the board just under three minutes into the game before Northwood’s defense held Otsego at bay over the next 20 minutes.

Eberly then put one past Northwood’s goalkeeper, Leah Wauford, with 14:43 left, which helped Otsego to a 2-0 lead at the break.

“We’re young, and we have a lot of inexperienced players,” Northwood head coach Monte Bandeen said. “We showed that today. We struggled a little bit trying to figure things out. We’re still learning. We did some good things in practice this week, and we didn’t apply them today, but we’re young and learning.”

Otsego used its experience to put the game away early in the second half.

Lorenz scored just over a minute in, and Eberly added two more shortly thereafter as the Knights took a 5-0 lead just six minutes into the half.

The duo added one more goal apiece in the game’s 57th and 58th minutes to conclude the scoring.

“I think our distribution out of the back was the key to our play,” Puffer said. “I liked the production from our younger players. We had several freshmen on the field that performed really well. That’s what I was most happy about was seeing the good performances of the younger players today.”

Otsego was missing one of its top goal scorers due to injury, but the senior Eberly is the team’s leading scorer from last year. Lorenz is a sophomore.

“(Lorenz) is an up-and-comer,” Puffer said. “When we have all three of them healthy, I think our offense will be really strong.”

For Northwood, they ended the game on a positive note as freshman midfielder Reagen Pendrey delivered her a goal with 1:24 remaining to prevent a shutout.

“She missed a couple shots, and I always tell her, ‘short-term memory. You’ll get the next one,’ ” Bandeen said. “She really missed that bad one the first time. She put the next one on the goalie to make a save, and then she scored a goal.”