The Incarnate Word Red Knights racked up 24 shots Friday night, including 15 on goal.
The Helias Lady Crusaders notched just seven shots, putting only three of them on frame.
Guess which team won?
In a perfect example of the old saying that less is more, the Lady Crusaders made the most of their opportunities and notched a 2-1 win against the Red Knights at the 179 Soccer Park.
"That's a program win for us," Helias coach Brad Dempsey said. "If you look over the past two years that I've been coaching, we've been close to beating teams like that, but we haven't done it. So for us to come in to our home opener and do that, I'm very happy."
The Lady Crusaders showed just how opportunistic they were going to be from the start. After the Red Knights had the better of play in the first 15 minutes, the Lady Crusaders finally started taking the ball into Incarnate Word's half of the field.
On one of those trips into the Incarnate Word zone, one of the Red Knights was called for a hand ball. That gave Katlyn Cowell a free kick from roughly 30 yards out, and she put a perfectly placed shot into the goal for a 1-0 lead with 21:34 left until halftime.
"I was thinking, "Don't kick it over, don't kick it over,'" Cowell said. "I've been practicing those shots in practice, so I had a lot of confidence that I could hit it.
"I knew I wanted to hit it left top corner, and that's where it went."
Just 10:04 later, the Lady Crusaders were back on the board. A perfect pass from Maddie Lammers put Sydnee Kliethermes in a one-on-one situation with the Incarnate Word keeper, and Kliethermes looped a shot over the top of her for a 2-0 lead.
"That was a great finish," Dempsey said. "Just because it's one-on-one with the keeper doesn't mean you're going to score. You can freak out. So Sydnee really put that home."
Dempsey added the play was a good example of how the Lady Crusaders are trying to play this season.
"In the first half, you saw the things we're doing," he said. "We got behind the defense a lot - we've got some girls that can get after people. They can run hard at people, and that's not fun for a defender."
At halftime, Incarnate Word had an 11-6 lead in shots, and an 8-2 edge in shots on goal. But thanks to several nice saves by Ashley Rehagen, Helias was up 2-0 in the only category that mattered.
"This is our first win against one of the big teams we're not necessarily supposed to beat," Cowell said, "so going into the half with a 2-0 lead, that really gave us a lot of confidence."
But the Red Knights made sure the Lady Crusaders wouldn't be able to breathe easy until the next 40 minutes were finished.
Helias would manage just one shot in the second half, while Incarnate Word would rip off 13. The Red Knights put the pressure on immediately and it paid dividends with a score less than four minutes into the half.
Roughly five minutes later, the Red Knights missed a perfect chance to tie it when a player just three feet in front of the goal somehow managed to lift a shot over the crossbar.
But try as they might, the Red Knights could never find the equalizer, even though the Lady Crusaders appeared to be playing on tired legs as the game wore on.
"We had a really tough practice a couple days ago, and it hurt us in the second half," Dempsey said. "If we would have lost, I would have taken some blame for that.
"The practice wasn't because they did anything wrong, but we came off (a 1-0 win Tuesday at Waynesville) and our coaching staff wanted to send a message to our girls that, "Hey, we play one of the toughest schedules in the state. We can't play down to our opponents or play up just when we're playing certain teams.' That's been the nature of us in the past. Our girls rose to the challenge tonight and they played their hearts out."
Incarnate Word didn't make it any easier by playing extremely physical, as the Red Knights had an 8-2 lead in fouls and could have been whistled for several more.
But Helias kept clearing away dangerous chance after dangerous chance and emerged with the win.
"The second half was kind of stressful, but I think we all knew what it took to get the job done," Cowell said. "They did get one goal, but we knew we weren't going to let them do it again."
The Lady Crusaders will have little time to savor the win, as they play at 12:45 p.m. today at Quincy (Ill.) Notre Dame.
"It's one game and it's early in the season," Dempsey said. "We're leaving in the morning to go play Quincy Notre Dame and they've won two state championships in the last five years. We always have a knock-down, drag-out game with them."