Big first half leads SV past Perryville

In a matchup that had all the makings of clash of titans of sorts, St. Vincent had other ideas against its crosstown rival.
St. Vincent scored three times in the first half and went on to defeat Perryville 3-1 on Saturday at the Bank of Missouri Soccer Complex. It is the second straight year the Indians have defeated the Pirates.
I’m not going to lie,” St. Vincent coach Todd Strattman said. “I thought our goalkeeper played an excellent game. She hasn’t had a whole lot of experience and we haven’t been in a lot of close games, but she came up big several times and made the saves that we needed.”
The outcome surprised Strattman to a degree because both teams seemed evenly matched on paper.
“I was a little surprised by the score partly because both teams were winning and playing good soccer coming into the matchup,” he said. “But I give all the credit to my girls and the way they talked on offense and played great defense. To hold a team like Perryville to no goals for much of the game is not easy.”
Perryville coach Jerry Fulton hopes his team can use a game like this to make them better.
“I think we could use this game as some sort of a wake-up call,” Fulton said. “I thought we got a few unlucky breaks and it seemed like all our shots seemed to go right to the goalie.
Perryville had the first few scoring chances in the game as Brynn Wibbenmeyer had an opening but the shot was saved by St. Vincent goalkeeper Jocelyn Leible. Carlie Holdman had a breakaway shortly after that, but was taken down by a St. Vincent defender, which resulted in a yellow card. Fulton thought the play should have resulted in a red card and left St. Vincent down one defender.

“That’s a breakaway about one yard outside the box,” Fulton said. “That’s a red card by rule. As early as that happened, it could have changed the whole game.”
From there it was mostly St. Vincent as Lana Adams found herself open in the in the box at the 12-minute mark and shot one past Perryville goalie Brooklyn Moll.
Abigail Schilling scored twice more, including with four minutes left in the first half to go up 3-0. Adams, Kamille Graham and Haley Emmendorfer were credited with assists in the game.
The defense for St. Vincent stifled the Perryville offense for much of the contest. Perryville came into the game with 41 goals in its last five games.
“I challenged the girls to come out with some energy and show some fight in the second half and I thought we did that,” Fulton said.
Perryville avoided the shutout with a goal with seven minutes remaining.
“The only thing we can do is work on some of the things we saw today and come back and play,” Fulton said.
St. Vincent (12-3) will travel to St. Pius on May 10 for its regular finale, while Perryville (12-3) will take on Hillsboro Thursday at home in its next game.