Westlake came into its second game of the season at home looking for a victory against a North Ridgeville team with two ties on its ledger.
A dominant first half for Westlake was all the Demons needed, as they posted a 5-1 win over the Rangers.
There were a number of positives for the Westlake side after scoring the first victory of the young season, as coach Dan O’Brien explained.
“Their effort is very good,” O’Brien said. “Our individual defending and group defending is great as well. And I think they’re bringing joy to the game finally, it’s not such a labored moment.”
Jesse Meno and the Demons pushed the pace early, with a near goal within the first two minutes if not for a fantastic diving save by CC Bouman.
Meno got another chance in the fourth minute, bringing the ball up and putting it into the net for an early one-goal lead.
“It was satisfying,” Meno laughed a little after recalling the early exchange. “I was so mad after the first shot. Then I scored again after the first one and missed a bunch more and I was so frustrated. But it was nice to get those other ones.”
Meno grabbed her second goal off a beautiful pass from the midfield by Katie Kruger in the 12th minute. The ball was placed perfectly in front of the senior captain to punch it in with no one else in her way outside of the goalkeeper. Meno would add an assist six minutes later to Ella Henton to make it 3-0 in a hurry.
North Ridgeville had an opportunity to narrow the deficit down to two scores in the 20th minute, but a great defensive stop by the backline to kick the ball toward the sidelines with the goalkeeper out of position kept the ball out of the net and the Rangers off the scoreboard.
By the end of the half, Westlake led, 4-0, on a goal from junior Avery Shreffler with a little under 15 minutes to go in the first half.
Coming off a hard loss to Magnificat, the Demons took the lead early and handled business.
“It meant a lot,” Ella Henton said. “It was amazing for us. We needed the win to keep pushing forward, and it was really good for us.”
The second half played out fairly evenly, with no scoring from either side until the final 10 minutes, with North Ridgeville’s Haley Catanese nailing a penalty kick and Westlake’s Henton punching in her second goal and fourth of the season in the final minute of regulation.
North Ridgeville coach Tim Hoffman said it was an adjustment at first to playing on grass, given their home games are played on turf.
“We’re used to playing on (turf), it’s a little more difficult to run fitness-wise on the grass as well,” Hoffman explained. “We played well the first five minutes before Westlake started to get their bearings and put four (scores) in on us. The second half we just said ‘forget about the first half, 4-0 is a hard lead to come back from, let’s just focus on winning the second half.”
With that simple message, The Rangers kept the Demons off the scoreboard before Henton’s second goal with 51 seconds remaining in the contest with a much stronger performance.
“They took that in stride, said Hoffman. “We started to possess (the ball) like we know how and used the width of the field and stay composed under pressure and keeping a level head. It’s easy when you’re down 4-0 to get frustrated and start getting a little chippy. So we were working on staying composed.”
North Ridgeville (0-1-2) hits the road again Aug. 28 with a visit to Elyria Catholic and Westlake (1-1-0) will travel to Brecksville-Broadview Heights Aug. 26 for a matinee match.
