Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – After a year without soccer nearly every team is in the same situation this spring attempting to sort out all the pieces early in the season.

Despite being without a few pieces West High continued to see the complete puzzle come together on Tuesday.

Playing without a pair of starters West High scored three goals in the opening 35 minutes on its way to a 3-0 victory over cross-town rival Liberty High (2-1) in a Mississippi Valley Conference match in North Liberty.

“We have a lot of new players that don’t have varsity experience and then we’ve had people in quarantine that haven’t been able to play with us but we have definitely been able to fit people in,” West High junior Makenna Vonderhaar said. “At practices people have been working really hard and that makes a big difference.”

Juniors Jada Dachtler, Aasiya Ali and Vonderhaar scored goals for West High on Tuesday as the Trojans improved to 2-1 with their second consecutive win.

Since a 2-1 loss to Ankeny in the season opener West High has outscored opponents 6-1 in wins over North Scott and Liberty High.

“They are playing at a really high level,” veteran West High coach Dave Rosenthal said. “We started off with a penalty kick loss to Ankeny and had a good win against North Scott. We’ve been playing really well, we played well here, you can see we have a lot of options and a good understanding of what the players can do.”

Like most teams West High has working in a number of players that previously lacked any varsity experience.

Integrating a number of new pieces has been complicated with a number of starters missing time while in quarantine for COVID-19 protocol.

Despite the challenges West High is off to a strong start and Rosenthal hopes the mixing and matching he has done early will pay off down the road.

“We are out utilizing people in different players out of necessity and in the end that can’t be bad because they are getting playing time,” Rosenthal said. “They are learning new positions and that provides us with options going forward which is good.”

West High wasted little time taking control on Tuesday.

Operating with a strong wind at its back in the opening half West High accounted for all of the scoring.

Dachtler opened the scoring in the 13^th minute when she lofted a shot over Liberty High keeper Sam Harvey from nearly 30 yards out.

“I remember taking it into the middle, I beat one of the center backs and my goal was to hit it over keeper,” Dachtler said. “It kind of just blew with the wind and went into the corner.”

Ali gave the Trojans a 2-0 cushion less than six minutes later when she scored on a rebound attempt following a Vonderhaar shot from inside the box.

“The first half we definitely came out strong,” Dachtler said. “We have been working really hard to do that and come out stronger and getting going early. I feel like we played well together and we are learning.”

Vonderhaar capped the scoring when she weaved through Liberty High defenders and hammered in a shot from inside the box in the 36^th minute.

It was the second goal of the season for Vonderhaar.

“I went through a couple of people and then I just hit it as hard as I could,” Vonderhaar said. “I didn’t really even try to place it.”

Liberty High held West High in check offensively after halftime but couldn’t mount much of an offensive attack against the Trojans.

The best scoring opportunity for Liberty High came on an Elise Hermiston free kick with 17:54 left but West High keeper Julia Bernat deflected the shot and then saved a potential rebound attempt to preserve the shutout.

“Jada and McKenna are just top-notch players and they caused us lots of trouble,” Liberty High coach Frank Fiordellisi said. “We just kind of challenged our kids at halftime and said at the end of the day we know they are a strong team and they have strong players but at what point are you going to challenge yourself and say enough is enough and I thought they did much better in the second half.”

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