For the second round game of the Sectional 41 competition, the Lady Cadets hosted the Lady Mounties of Southmont High School. The Cadets entered the game with a record of 7-6-1 and Southmont held a record of 10-6-1. The two schools had faced each almost two weeks ago and the Lady Cadets defeated Southmont 3-0. The Lady Cadets and Lady Mounties know each other very well having played six times in the past three years. The Cadets have a one game lead in the head to head match-up (3-2) but all five games have been intense, physical games. When the Sectional draw was announced last week, both teams expected to play each other in the second round of Sectionals given their first round opponents. The winner of tonight’s game was expected to face Greencastle in the championship game on Saturday afternoon. The Cadets have been playing very well over the past three weeks and they were actively looking forward to playing tonight’s game against Southmont. The Cadets came out ready to play in the first couple of minutes in tonight's game but soon lost some energy and struggled moving the ball reliably up the field. Southmont was able to get the first goal of the game at just under 20:00 in the first half. The Lady Cadets misplayed a clearing pass out of their goalie area and ball bounced around until the Mounties were able to poke the ball into the net. After going down 0-1 in the first half to the Lady Mounties, the Cadets rallied together and found some positive space working the ball down the sideline and began creating some good shots again. Creedance Chittenden collected the ball near the corner flag in the Southmont end of the field. She then took two dribbles toward the goal and played a great pass to Anna Burns, who scored the game tying goal for the Lady Cadets with 11:00 remaining left in the half. The goal for Anna was her 13th goal of the season and the assist was Creedance’s third. The Cadets and Mounties moved the ball back and forth in the midfield for the rest of the half without developing any quality shots to wind down the first half. The score was 1-1 at halftime. As the second half began, both Cascade and Southmont had plenty of positive actions in their memories of the first half. Southmont’s goal might have come from a poor clearance by the Cadets but they put two strong shots on goal that were brilliantly saved by the Cadets freshman goalie, Zoey Wyneken. The Cadets only managed to score one goal in the first half but you could see how the Cadets were still getting good passes toward the goal that were just outside of the reach of the attacking players. The game still remained a 50/50 game and the team who was going to win would be the one that maximized their strengths. A strength for the Cadets has been the work ethic of Grace Trump as an attacking player. Grace was injured in the summer of 2021 and missed the entire 2021 championship season recovering from her injury. It took Grace a couple of games in 2022 to get mentally prepared for the pain and frustration of playing on a reconstructed leg and she has done an amazing job for the Cadets. Grace would put the Cadets a point up on the Mounties early in the second half when she found a way to get a clean touch on the soccer ball in front of the Southmont goal and kicked it into the back of the net. The goal at 36:10 put the Cadets up 2-1 and the Lady Cadets reorganized themselves to get ready for the extra effort that Southmont was going to give to find that tying goal. As the Cadets moved their defensive alignment a little deeper on their end of the field, Southmont reorganized their players positions and put their best offensive players up front. These changes led to some exciting offensive action in the Cascade defensive third but no good shots were taken and no goals were scored during this 15:00 offensive wave from the Lady Mounties. As the Cadets kept holding their defensive position late in the second half, they were able to grab a couple of offensive attacks that caught Southmont off guard and reeling back onto defense. Creedance Chittenden and Grace Trump were able to pair up on one of these attacking runs and managed to get a goal from the attack. When Ava Cook made a clean recovery of a Southmont pass, she looked up to push the ball toward the sideline and start an attacking pattern. A quick pass up to Grace Trump opened up some space on the right side of the field for the Cadets and Grace took a couple of dribbles toward the goal just outside of the Southmont defenders. Grace made an excellent pass forward to Creedance who had taken a centered position in the attacking pattern. The pass from Grace struck the hand of the Southmont defender and the officials yelled “advantage” and let the play continue without stopping the play. Creedance settled the pass just outside of the penalty box and struck a great ball into the corner of the net to give the Cadets a 3-1 lead with 3:13 remaining on the game clock. The goal scored by Creedance was her 13th goal on the season and Grace’s assist was her fourth of the season. As the game clock wound down, the Cadets cleared the ball out of bounds on almost every Southmont possession and the game ended 3-1 in favor of the Lady Cadets. The Lady Cadets season record now stands at 8-6-1 and the Southmont Lady Mounties season ends with a record of 10-7-1. With the win, the Lady Cadets move into the Sectional championship game on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. against Greencastle. This will be the third consecutive Sectional championship game for the Lady Cadets soccer team. The Cadets lost to Southmont in 2020 by penalty kicks and the Cadets defeated Covington to win the Sectional last season. The Cadets and Tiger Cubs played each other back on September 11th and the game ended in a 1-1 tie. Greencastle defeated Bethesda Christian 3-1 in the second game last night to advance to the Sectional championship game. Game Summary Cascade 1 - 2 3 North Putnam 1 - 0 1 Goals/Assists: 1H 10:59 Anna Burns (13), A: Creedance Chittenden (3) 2H 36:10 Grace Trump (12) 2H 3:13 Creedance Chittenden (13), A: Grace Trump (4)