The Lady Cadets Soccer team traveled to Northview High School tonight to play the Lady Knights for their twelfth game of the season. Coming into tonight’s game, the Lady Cadets’ record on the season stands at 5-5-1 and the Lady Knights’ record stands at 3-8. Last season, bad weather canceled the game between Northview and Cascade before it ever got started. With tonight’s game against Northview, the Lady Cadets have almost completed their end of the season gauntlet of highly competitive games. The Cadets have played respectively well over this stretch with only one loss (Danville 2-1) and three victories against good competition. Some of this improved play has come from the fact that the Lady Cadets have started the same lineup for the past six games and all of the players are starting to play consistent positions on the field. This growing familiarity in positions and players helped the Cadets push past a well coached and young Northview team this evening. Northview preferred to play an “offsides trapping“ defense as a way to limit the offensive buildup of their opponents and they were very successful in their effort in the first 20:00 of the game tonight. The Lady Cadets were flagged for five offsides in the opening 20:00 of the game and had considerable trouble pushing the ball beyond this compressing style of play. It wasn’t until the Cadets were able to create a couple of breakaway opportunities did Northview’s defense start to lose its shape and discipline. Creedance Chittenden got the Cadets on the board when she received a clean pass just away from the defensive line and was able to turn toward the Northview goal. Creedance got a clear look at the goal and took a great shot from a tough angle that slipped just to the left side of the goalie. Creedance’s tenth goal of the season helped relieve some of the attacking pressure that the Cadets’ defensive group was facing for most of the first half. When the first half ended with the Cadets leading 1-0, the members of the Cadets’ soccer team huddled on the sideline and talked positively about the ways to keep putting pressure on the Northview defensive system which looked like it was ready to break. The Cadets found ways to break through the struggling Northview defensive system with relative ease in the second half. Grace Trump and Creedance Chittenden used their aggressive play to keep the Northview defense on their heels. Grace was able to push her way past the Northview defenders repeatedly and it seemed only a matter of time before she’d finally get a good shot on goal. Grace was finally able to score her ninth goal of the season when Northview failed to settle the ball cleanly and the ball bounced in front of Grace. Grace dribbled the ball about 30 yards in open field and took a clean shot on the Northview goalie that easily sailed into the back of the net. Grace’s goal at 30:16 remaining in the game pushed the score up to 2-0 in favor of the Cadets. As the Cascade coaches started to see new opportunities to exploit the inconsistent Northview defense, Ava Cook was asked to move up from her defensive position to become an attacking forward. As an attacking forward, Ava could use her speed to split the struggling defensive formation and hopefully get a clean shot on goal. This strategy worked when Ava was able to tap the soccer ball into the goal just a couple of minutes after Grace Trump had scored. The score of the game was now 3-0 and started to seem out of reach for Northview to come back. Creedance Chittenden was able to score one more goal in the evening and the game ended in a surprising 4-0 victory for the Cadets. With the win, the Lady Cadets record improves back to 6-5-1 and the Lady Knights are now 3-9. The Cadets now get a well deserved seven day break and prepare for their last game of the season against Speedway on Thursday, September 29th. The game is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. The IHSAA Soccer Tournament Selection show will take place this weekend on Sunday at 7:00 on IHSAA TV. Cascade is scheduled as the host site this year for Sectional 41. Game Summary Cascade 1 - 3 4 Northview 0 - 0 0 Goals: 1H 10:42 Creedance Chittenden (10) 2H 30:16 Grace Trump (9) 2H 26:15 Ava Cook (1) 2H 15:43 Creedance Chittenden (11)