By Greg Gielczyk
LocalSportsJournal.com

MANISTEE — It’s been a rough week for the Manistee girls soccer team as the Chippewas have lost a pair of important West Michigan Conference games, both of them at home at Chippewa Field.

Both losses have been to two of the top teams in the conference.

First it was North Muskegon, which flexed its muscle and dominated the Chippewas from start to finish. The latest setback was a much more competitive 3-1 loss to Montague.

“We got off to a little bit of a slow start, gave up an easy one right off the bat,” Manistee coach Kathy Smith said. “Their second goal was really beautiful after we’d stopped her. They play out of the back well and we know they’re one of the top teams in the conference. But the second half we played them even, and we stuck to our game plan.

“We did make some adjustments the second half in terms of our formation, which maybe we should have done a little bit earlier. But, it really seemed to help.”

Montague stunned the Chippewas when they took the opening kickoff and marched resolutely, and quickly, down the field to put the ball in the back of the net less than a minute into the first half.

But the Chippewas managed to shake it off and came back to score the equalizer, with Allison Kelley starting the play when she sent a free kick across to Kate Somsel. Somsel then quickly got her foot on the ball and booted a high kick that soared toward the goal, where Jayna Edmondson tapped it into the net to make it 1-1.

The Wildcats, however, continued to press the attack and converted on two more shots to go into the halftime break with a 3-1 lead.

Manistee was able to keep the Wildcats out of the net in the second half, thanks in large part to the goalkeeping of sophomore netminder Piper Eskridge.

“We got our energy level back in the second half,” added Smith. “We’d like to have those first 10 minutes back. Jayna made several nice runs to get 1-on-1 with the goalie. One of the things we talked about at halftime was being more physical, and not be pushed off the ball so easily. I think we did that in the second half, too. The girls came out with more fire and energy, and that showed.”

Manistee fell to 8-3-1 on the season and is at Orchard View in a makeup game Thursday.

The Wildcats improved to 7-4-0 on the season with its second straight win and hosts the Grand Rapids West Michigan Aviation Academy on Saturday.