PLYMOUTH — In the battle of youth against experience, it was experience taking the convincing win as Plymouth defeated LaVille in girls’ soccer action 5-1 at the Kindt Soccerplex.
The senior-dominated Lady Rockies dominated play from beginning to end forcing the action from the opening kick and keeping the play in the LaVille end for nearly all of the night.
Aubrey Vervynckt drilled home a shot from the right side less than five minutes in to start the scoring for Plymouth.
“They push really high and their formation took a little bit of figuring out,” said LaVille coach Daniel Pleninger. “They were connecting passes. They were just playing really, really well.”
“Our girls have been working on just moving the ball and attacking,” said Plymouth coach Stephanie Ferch. “From the outside and the middle, I think they did a good job tonight of mixing it up a little bit.”
After missing on some good shot opportunities, Plymouth struck again two minutes later. Again it was Vervynckt with a point-blank putback of a rebound that put the Lady Rockies up 2-0 at 33:14.
Before the end of the half, Alexis Rose would blast home another point-blank shot on goal to run the score to 3-0.
“We went in wanting to work on some of the things we’ve been struggling with and get comfortable and the girls did a good job,” said Ferch. “We got some girls on the field that haven’t seen a lot of varsity time and that is nice too.”
The second half started much the same way the first ended with Plymouth applying constant pressure to the LaVille defense. In spite of the barrage Lady Lancer keeper, Heaylyn Kwiatkowski was nothing short of brilliant on the night, turning away chance after chance. The Lancer goalie endured 19 shots on goal making 14 saves.
“She’s been a big surprise in her first year without a ton of experience coming in and she’s been carrying us at the beginning of the season,” said Pleninger. “I’m really impressed with her.”
Rose would drive home her second goal of the night 15 minutes into the second half and Lindsay Janus would end the Plymouth scoring with a breakaway less than a minute later.
The Lady Lancers would get on the board at the 70-minute mark with a penalty kick by Kylie Gorka.
“We are a team full of juniors. We have just one senior,” said Pleninger. “We’re figuring things out. Our chemistry is coming together. We have eight returning girls and eight that are new. I like the way that we played. When we have the ball at our feet I think that our talent shows. We didn’t have the ball at our feet much today.”
On Plymouth’s side, a very impressive start to the season is cause for the optimism to continue.
“We have a lot of seniors, a lot of veterans,” said Ferch. “This is a strong team in that sense that they’ve been here so we were happy to get this season in.”
“I knew they would be strong this year and they’ve proven they know what they are doing,” she said. “We are excited to get into the thick of our season. We have some big conference games coming up. We are excited.”
Plymouth is 4-1 and has a non-conference contest with LaPorte on Tuesday. LaVille is now 2-4 with a matchup Tuesday with Goshen.
