For the final game of the Sectional 41 competition, the Lady Cadets hosted the Lady Tiger Cubs of Greencastle High School. The Cadets entered the game with a record of 8-6-1 and Greencastle held a record of 11-3-3. The two schools played each other early in September and the physical game ended in a 1-1 tie. Greencastle and Cascade were the two best teams of Sectional 41 and today’s game was anticipated to be a physical, fast paced game. Being a part of today’s Sectional 41 Championship game had positive outcomes for both teams. For the Lady Cadets, they looked to continue last year’s success and win another Sectional title. For the Lady Tiger Cubs, they looked to turn the corner toward a more successful future as they moved down to the 1A Sectional competitions. The dropping of classes had helped Greencastle get out of the shadow of some local 2A girls soccer powerhouses and built the team’s confidence and optimism for a successful season. Greencastle had already won their conference title (8-0, Western Indiana) and a Sectional 41 title today would ignite the excitement of future success within the Greencastle girls soccer program. All Greencastle had to do was to defeat the defending Sectional champions on their home field. The pace of the game never fully reached the speed that was anticipated because the physical play dominated much of the time. When each team did get some clear field and space to move the ball, the game was beautiful and rhythmic. However, the repeated restarts slowed down the game and took away an advantage that each team held in their attacking formations. A slower game favored the Cadets who, over the course of the season, have chosen to be a little more patient with their offensive attacks. In Greencastle’s eleven wins, they had overwhelmed teams with their offensive speed and talents. The Lady Cadets were privileged to have a very diverse defensive unit that could be moved and shaped into any situation they needed to handle. The starting defensive unit of Laura Cameron, Katie Guetig, Ava Cook, Emily Nava, Ainsley Engel, and Caitlyn Russell had moved around on the field all season in various formations. It was the diversity of this defensive unit that had helped the Lady Cadets move the ball up the field toward their best offensive players in Grace Trump (12 goals), Anna Burns (12 goals), and Credence Chittenden (13 goals). With such a slowed down and physical game, there were limited opportunities for quality shots for both teams. For the whole game, Greencastle was credited with seven shots, one on goal, and the Lady Cadets were credited with eight shots, four on goal. The only goal in this slow, physical game was scored off of a situation that the Cadets had been practicing the past two weeks. Coming off of a Cascade throw-in, a defensive player on Greencastle failed to cleanly settle the ball and it bounced up into her wrist. The Assistant Referee just in front of the player called the hand ball and the Cascade players quickly set up to restart play just outside of the Greencastle penalty box. As Mallory Laughlin moved in to take the restart kick, a Greencastle player stepped right in front of her delaying her restart. The Center Referee immediately stopped the clock and yellow carded the player for delaying the game and the Greencastle player was summoned off the field. The time it took to have the player notified of the card and her removal from the field allowed Cascade to change the person who would be taking the direct kick. Mallory Laughlin was originally going to take the direct kick but Anna Burns was called over to take the kick and Mallory moved down the line to receive a short pass if necessary. Anna had taken a direct kick a couple of minutes earlier from a similar position almost 10 yard further back and this ball was easily caught by the Greencastle goalie. Anna was reminded of this previous kick from the sideline and she was instructed to consider putting the ball a little further out to the left of the goal. This adjustment allowed Anna’s kick to hang up into the wind just enough that it was able to slide just under the crossbar and into the back of the net. This goal at 16:20 in the first half was Anna’s 13th goal of the season but more importantly it gave the Cadets a 1-0 lead that they would keep for the remainder of the half. The physicality of the first half remained constant in the second half. There were 21 fouls called in the entire game and most of these fouls accumulated in the second half when Greencastle was playing with a desperate passion to score a goal. This physical play knocked two Cascade starters off of the field for short moments but still the Cadets found a way keep the ball out of the net. The best scoring attempt for Greencastle was when the ball bounced off the right goal post and right into the path of the Greencastle player. The Greencastle player took a quick one touch shot right into the arms of the surprised Cascade goalie. The most exciting moments of the game were in the last two minutes when three fouls were called against the Cadets and Greencastle was awarded indirect kicks into the defensive 1/3rd of the field. Luckily for Cascade, none of these shots developed into serious shots on the goal and the Lady Cadets cleared the ball forward to wind out the game clock. The Lady Cadets celebrated in the center of the field while their second Sectional trophy was awarded to them by Mr. Donovan. The Lady Cadets season record now stands at 9-6-1 and the Sectional championship was their second title in a row and the third for the program (2014, 2021, and 2022). The Cadets now look ahead to a couple of days off during Fall Break and their Regional Semifinal game on Thursday, October 13th against Covenant Christian High School. Covenant Christian was the winner of Sectional 42 and has an 11-7-1 record on the season. They participate in the Circle City conference with much larger private schools like Guerin Catholic, Brebeuf Jesuit, and Roncali. For Covenant Christian, the 2022 Sectional championship was their fourth in the past six seasons. Game Summary Cascade 1 - 0 1 Greencastle 0 - 0 0 Goals/Assists: 1H 16:20 Anna Burns (13) 2022 Cascade Cadets Sectional Championship Roster 1 Zoey Wyneken (Fr) 2 Ainsley Engel (Jr) 7 Anna Burns (So) 8 Grace Trump (Jr) 12 Laura Cameron (Sr) 13 Jaden Howell-Smith (So) 14 Creedance Chittenden (Jr) 15 Alexa Rodriguez (So) 16 Trinity Reitzel (So) 18 Taylor Trusty (So) 20 Mallory Laughlin (Sr) 21 Ava Cook (Sr) 22 McKenna Potters (Fr) 23 Emily Nava (Sr) 24 Caitlyn Russell (So) 28 Katie Guetig (Jr)