LEXINGTON - The Clear Fork Lady Colts have been waiting for one win to get the momentum on their side.
After falling to Madison in the season opener and Wooster on a late, fluke goal with less than two minutes left, the Lady Colts needed a big win to wash the bad taste out of their mouths and they got it on Monday night shutting out Lexington 2-0 for a nice tournament resume-building win.
"Lexington has been good for so many years and when every you can beat them, it always gives you a good feeling because you know you just beat a very good team," Clear Fork junior Trinity Cook said. "Can't ask for more than a win against Lex."
Cook had her hand in the win, well more like her foot, as she got the Lady Colts on the board early knocking home the first goal of the game at the three-minute mark before the public address announcer could finish announcing the names of the players.
The goal set the tone for the rest of the night as Clear Fork controlled possession for much of the first half.
"I felt like they settled down and played their game," Clear Fork coach Brittany Bechtel said. "For the first time this year, I looked out and thought, "There they are. That is what we worked all summer for." In that moment, I felt proud of all the time we put in. Beyond the first goal, their movement in the first half was nice to see that we still have the ability to do that."
Clear Fork added a second goal at the 36-minute mark when Carly McCue picked up a rebound and sent one to the back of the net to give the Lady Colts the 2-0 lead and kind of send Lexington into a shell shock.
"You never want to give anything up early," Lexington coach Buck Morton said. "But for us, there is just no time for us to feel our way through a game. We have to be sharp from the beginning. That is what killed us during the Ontario game and that is what killed us tonight. We weren't the aggressive team, we didn't play hard and we let them take advantage of a miscue. We played a bad ball and they jumped on it. Just like the second goal. They were on it, we weren't and that is the difference in the game."
Morton also felt like his team could have avoided giving up the two first-half goals which in turn would have allowed Lady Lex to play loose and possibly capitalize on one.
"We feel like we wasted 40 minutes in the first half and then had to come out and dig and claw in the second," Morton said. "When you put that extra pressure on yourself, we just couldn't find one."
But Cook's goal within the first three minutes of the game, the Lady Colts' first goal of the season as a team, was just what Clear Fork needed to get the monkey of going scoreless in their first two games off their backs.
"It was a big momentum boost for us," Cook said. "That was our first goal of the season and we are three games into it so that goal just helped get things going. I don't know if they were expecting us to come out that quick. I don't think I have ever played a game where we scored that early, but that set the tone."
In the second half, Clear Fork turned the game over to its defense. Senior Avery Wend kept everything in front of her and deflected any chances of scoring a goal and keeper Renee Anders played lights out with six saves.
"Props to our keeper, Renee (Anders)," Cook said. "And everyone who put in time on defense either starting or coming off the bench, they put in solid minutes. We wouldn't have won without them."
Lex turned up the pressure and controlled the ball for a majority of the second half, but it was Wend and crew who stepped up and completed the shutout.
"Our leader back there is Avery (Wend) and she is a player we always wanted to get to the six," Bechtel said. "She is just such a lead player and the quarterback of our defense that when we don't have her back there, we struggle. We are trying to learn how to live without her so when we do get scored on, we can press her high. Defense wins championships and we always say that. To keep the ball out of the goal against Lex is a huge accomplishment that proves that saying."
Lex had its chances to get on the board with 10 corner kicks and six shots on target with many more shots going inches wide or centimeters high. It wasn't for a lack of effort, but maybe a touch of back luck.
"The number of corner kicks and all the chances we got from them," Morton said. "We got good looks. It wasn't like we had a bunch of corners and just kicked it over. We had great opportunities and we just didn't finish. Those are things that will come, but I told our girls that we just didn't play with a sense of urgency in the first half. When you lay back, you make mistakes against a team that plays hard."
Clear Fork took just five shots with three on target and two goals. Lexington's Eyan Underwood recorded a save while watching her team take 12 shots with six on target, but not being able to put one in the back of the net.
Lexington fell to 1-2 on the season and hosts Ashland on Thursday.
Clear Fork improved to 1-2 and travels to River Valley on Sept. 10 to hopefully continue the momentum they got from knocking off a rival.
"Lex was a team that when we started the program, we went all the way until 2010 without beating them," Bechtel said. "That year was the first time we beat them and they were the only team that we had never beat until 2010 and when we finally did, we went multiple years without losing to them so it is nice to have it swing back in our favor. We knew they were going to be more solid than Wooster and this win can rub a little bit of the pain from losing to Wooster away."
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