Photo by Jeff Yoder / Click to view photo gallery

Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – It took more than 230 for City High to find the back of the net this season.

236 minutes and 29 seconds to be exact.

The Little Hawks couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to break that scoreless streak.

Mia DePrenger scored off a Sam Schroder feed in the 77th minute to lift Class 3A No. 15 City High to a 1-0 win over West High in a cross-town showdown on Tuesday at the University of Iowa Soccer Complex.

“Getting our first win of the season and having it be against West was a big deal for all of us,” DePrenger said. “We knew we had to play our hardest because it really was going to come down to the team that wanted it the most.”

The first career goal for DePrenger was the first goal of the season for City High (1-2) which snapped a two-game shutout streak with its third consecutive win over West High.

West High dropped to 0-3 with the loss.

“I felt like forever since our last goal,” Schroder said. “We scored one at the Jamboree but that doesn’t count and we’ve played two games since so we’ve been waiting for that goal to come so when it came it just felt really good.”

Both teams had chances to get on the board before DePrenger turned into the hero in the final minutes.

After a first half relative void of solid scoring opportunities DePrenger just missed giving City High the lead 30 seconds into the second half.

The freshman fired a header from point blank range that required a nifty diving save my West High sophomore keeper Julia Bernat.

Schroder had her own chance to get City High on the board in the 44th minute but her straight on shot from inside the box was just wide left.

“Mia and Sam are a great compliment for each other,” City High coach Phillip Hansen said. “Mia is very talented and only a freshman so something we can look forward to for many years to come.”

West High had its top two scoring chances in the final 11 minutes.

Rachel Olson had a free kick sail high from 30 yards out in the 69th minute and freshman Kenadee Showalter’s rocket from inside the box was saved by City High keeper Naomi Meurice less than three minutes later.

“In coaching one of things that you do is watch the game and say do we need to shake something up and I felt pretty comfortable with how things were going,” West High coach Dave Rosenthal said. “We are just not willing to push ourselves over the edge to push and press and get the final third and we need to figure that out really soon.”

DePrenger and Schroder finally hooked up to find paydirt in the final five minutes.

Schroder took a pass near midfield and took several dribbles into West High territory before dumping a pass to DePrenger who was streaking down the sideline.

“I got the ball right in the middle and I had my two outside forwards doing exactly what they are supposed to do,” Schroder said. “I passed it straight in, Mia had a great finish, found the corner it was perfect.

DePrenger collected the feed from Schroder in stride and slipped a low shot past Bernat and in to the lower left corner of the goal with 3:31 remaining.

“There had been other runs that Morgan Turner was making and we couldn’t connect, I had an open slot so I called for it and she played it and I had the two touch on to it,” DePrenger said. “It had been a while, club or anything so it was just so much fun to go hug it out with my team.”

The win was the first as a head coach for Hansen who praised the resiliency of his team on Tuesday after going nearly 240 minutes without a goal to open the season.

“It’s not a 40 minute game, it’s not a 60-minute game it’s truly an 80-minute game and on a field this size that last run shows it,” Hansen said. “If you are willing to put in that extra work and do it one last time that is going to make the difference.”

City High has outscored West High 8-0 in the past three meetings after a pair of wins last season that halted a long stretch of Women of Troy dominance in the series.

“My freshman and sophomore year we didn’t beat them, my sisters never beat them so it feels really good to beat them three times in a year basically,” Schroder said. “It’s good motivation for us because we got that rivalry game out of the way and we know they are a very good team. I think it’s going to get us rolling and gives us some confidence.”

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