West High Offensive Impressive in 8-1 Win Over Cedar Rapids Washington
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
IOWA CITY – West High averaged just over four goals per game during its 12-0 start to the season.
After scoring 49 goals in 12 consecutive wins to open the season West High was held scoreless for better than 75 minutes and managed a single goal in a 2-1 setback to Linn-Mar last Thursday.
So how would the third-ranked Women of Troy respond to their first loss of the season and only signs of offensive ineffectiveness?
West High continued to show its answer to that question on Tuesday with an emphatic 8-1 win over Cedar Rapids Washington (7-6, 6-5) at breezy Barker Field at West High.
In two matches since its lone loss to the Lions last week, West High (14-1, 10-1) has won back-to-back matches by a combined score of 18-1.
“I think the Linn-Mar game gave us a little bit of a wakeup call and showed we have to get back to task,” West High coach Dave Rosenthal said. “You learn a lot from losses and I think it was good to help us turn this corner.”
One day after the loss to Linn-Mar ended West High’s unbeaten stretch to open the season the Women of Troy blanked Dubuque Wahlert 10-0.
West High picked up where it left off on Tuesday, scoring eight goals against a Cedar Rapids Washington team that had allowed a total of eight goals in its first 12 matches
Prior to Tuesday night the Warriors had allowed just four goals in their last eight matches and had surrendered more than two goals just once, in a season-opening loss to 1A top-ranked Davenport Assumption.
“They’re a good team, they’ve allowed eight goals all year and we just doubled that,” West High senior Steigleder said. “We had a team talk after Linn-Mar and figured everything out and we’ve been working a lot better.”
As she has all season Steigleder led the way for West High with three goals and three assists on Tuesday while fellow senior standout Emma Cooper added a goal and four assists.
Perhaps more importantly for West High was the performances from others on Tuesday.
After getting goals from four different players in the win over Dubuque Wahlert, five players found the net for West High on Tuesday.
Senior Leah Rhodes scored twice while Lizzie Raley and Pauline Kihura each scored their first goals of the season.
“After our loss we really worked hard in practice to make sure that we moved on and didn’t get down on each other,” Rhodes said. “We just came on strong after that I think we’ve done well.”
Steigleder called the loss to Linn-Mar “an off night,”.
What she hopes it will be is a learning experience.
The Lions focused their effort on slowing Steigleder and Cooper and had some success in doing so.
Since the loss Steigleder has spent time working on getting others involved in the West High attack.
“I think they did a good job of defending me and Emma and trying to shut us down and at the end of the game we started figuring out how to incorporate everyone else,” Steigleder said. “We’ve been incorporating a lot more people than me and Cooper scoring so that has been really good.”
Steigleder got West High going on Tuesday before turning things over to her teammates.
The senior midfielder put West High on top 2-0 with a pair of goals in the opening 28 minutes.
Raley and Cooper added first-half goals as West High scored three times in a little more than five minutes late in the first half to take a 4-0 lead.
Lead 4-1 at the half West High put things away quickly after halftime.
Rhodes started the second-half scoring with a goal off a perfect cross from Cooper in the 43rd minute.
Steigleder scored her team-leading 27th goal of the season in the 59th minute to make it 6-1 and Rhodes made it 7-1 when she headed in a Steigleder free kick less than two minutes later.
“Once we get that momentum it’s really important to keep it going,” Rhodes said. “I think we do a really good job of that.”
Kihura capped the scoring with her first career goal in the 62nd minute.
“West High usually has a deep bench and we want to try to take advantage of that,” Rhodes said. “I think it’s really important to get everyone on the team involved.”