WHITEHALL — Whitehall was able to make a first-half goal by Kate Beda stand up in Wednesday’s West Michigan Conference opener, earning a 1-0 win over Shelby.
The Vikings (2-0, 1-0 WMC) mostly controlled the early proceedings, playing with decisiveness and aggression. They were finally rewarded with 21:12 to play, when Beda fired a line drive shot past the Tigers’ keeper and into the net. Neither Beda nor Kendall Osborne, who play offensive positions for Whitehall, have a lot of experience doing so - Beda was a midfielder last year and plays for a travel team where her role is to pass the ball, and Osborne hasn’t played in years - but the shot was just the latest piece of evidence for coach Adam Prince and his staff to present to them in the quest to get them to shoot more.
“We tell her all the time, just shoot the ball, her and Kendall both,” Prince said. “Just shoot the ball and the ball will go in. Right now, they’re too unselfish, and they want to make sure they’re passing to these people and we want them to just start shooting.
“That’s one of the things with the girls game; there are keepers and there’s (just) people that are in goal. We want to make sure that we’re testing everybody that’s in goal.”
As the game went along, Shelby started to make some headway against Whitehall, especially when center defender Allie Van Antwerp had to leave the game due to leg cramps. The Tigers nearly scored late in the game when a shot got under the arms of Viking keeper Abbie Berman, but the ball hit the corner post and stayed there, enabling Berman to maintain a clean sheet.
“At one time, we had five freshmen and two sophomores out there towards the end,” Prince said. “When Allie went down towards the end with the cramps, she’s not just the center defense, she’s the vocal leader, making sure that everybody’s set back there. I think they gave away a couple of breakaways, but you saw the speed the freshmen have. In a couple years, they are going to be really good, but they’re pretty talented as they are right now.”
The Vikings’ success on defense to date - they’ve only surrendered one goal in two games - is all the more impressive considering all the new faces on the team. Even the older players, like Osborne and Lucy Zamojcin, are not experienced soccer players, having not been on the team in past years. Beda, a sophomore, and senior Ava Garcia are, Prince noted, among the only players with experience fitting into the Vikings’ lineup.
“We’re still trying to figure out where everybody’s supposed to be and how we’re supposed to interact between each other,” Prince said. “I think going forward, it’s going to actually help us a little bit more because our defense is already set, and it’s just getting the offense to fine-tune some things.”
Whitehall has a few more challenges between now and the April 24 game against powerhouse North Muskegon. Prince said he hopes the team is able to make that game a high-octane matchup by entering it with as few defeats as possible.
“Once we start to shoot the ball, I think we’re going to start to score a bunch of goals, (especially) with how well our defense is playing early on,” Prince said.
