Steamboat Pilot & Today

Craig — More shots on goal couldn’t yield a better result for the Moffat County High School girls varsity soccer team.

Steamboat Springs High School faced off with its league rival at Loudy-Simpson Park in Craig on Wednesday, winning 2-0.

The Bulldogs more than tripled their shot attempts from the teams’ first meeting April 11.

The Sailors won that matchup, 3-0, and again held the Bulldogs scoreless to win on the road Wednesday.

“We played good, but we just had little mistakes or else I think it could have been 0-0 and going to overtime,” Bulldogs head coach Harry Tripp said. “We only had about five shots in the first game against (Steamboat), and in this game we had between 15 to 20. We just couldn’t get the ball in the net.”

Joanie Bier scored the first goal for the Sailors (10-2-1 overall, 8-2 Western Slope League) on a penalty kick in the first half.

Meghan Rabbitt added the second goal for Steamboat with a kick that went off the crossbar and barely crossed the line with 2 minutes, 30 seconds left in the first half.

Steamboat head coach Rob Bohlmann said it wasn’t his team’s best game but they did well enough to get the job done.

Wednesday “wasn’t our sharpest day,” he said. “We came out pretty flat, but we got a penalty shot we capitalized on, and we held our own the whole game.”

The Bulldogs (5-8, 2-8) started the second half with a more explosive offense but could never get a shot past Steamboat goalie Hannah Barkey.

Moffat senior Justine Hathhorn had a shot that looked to be going right over Barkey’s head at the end of the first half, but Barkey made the save at the last second.

In the second half, Barkey stopped multiple shot attempts when Bulldogs junior Kelly Ciesco and sophomore Kelsie Pomeroy made their way close to the net.

“Our through passes were great again, but we missed some opportunities,” Tripp said.

Bohlmann said he knew his team would have to deal with a tenacious Bulldogs team coming in.

“When (Moffat County) comes out, they have fight in them and go right after it,” he said. “We had to factor that in, but again, we played the game the way we had to in order to get a victory.”

Moffat County and Steamboat each had four games this week because of rescheduled games.

Moffat County is 1-1 this week while the Sailors are a perfect 2-0 after beating Battle Mountain on Tuesday.

The Bulldogs host Palisade Thursday and finish the regular season at Battle Mountain on Friday.

Steamboat ends its regular season on the road, as well, with games in Delta Thursday and Palisade on Friday.