The Jefferson City Jays accomplished a lot of what they wanted to get done Tuesday night.
It just didn’t show up on the scoreboard.
“I like the way we defended tonight, we defended like warriors,” Jefferson City coach Scott Blake said after the Jays dropped a 2-0 decision to the Rock Bridge Bruins in Central Missouri Activities Conference play at the 179 Soccer Park.
“Our first and second defending touches were really good. And that’s the way you have to play when you play good teams.”
Jefferson City entered the game with the plan to play a defensive style against the high-powered Rock Bridge offense.
“We had a good game plan, it was a familiar plan and we executed it pretty well,” Blake said.
The Bruins threw a bit of a wrench in that plan, recording a goal a little less than four minutes into the game on a shot by Drew Schlimme.
“That was a killer,” Blake said. “Rock Bridge is not an easy team to try to come back against, chasing against them is tough.”
That was Rock Bridge’s third shot on goal in the game against Jefferson City keeper Drew Heller.
“That was a tough shot to stop,” Blake said.
Heller made saves on seven other first-half shots for Rock Bridge as the Bruins took that 1-0 lead into intermission.
“Credit to Drew, he played really well,” Blake said. “He made some great saves.”
The Bruins picked up their second goal with a little less than 13 minutes remaining on a blast by Sam McCrary from near the top of the box.
Down 2-0, Jefferson City tried to become a little more offensive. But the Jays weren’t going to go all out on their offensive end.
“We weren’t trying to sit on 2-0, but we weren’t going to take a lot of chances and have it finish 4-0,” Blake said.
Rock Bridge finished with a 22-4 edge in total shots.
“When we could get the ball to the right guy, we could be a little dangerous,” Blake said. “This is a process, you try to get better every day and I think we got better today by playing well against a very good opponent.”
Rock Bridge is now 12-1 overall, 3-0 in the CMAC.
Jefferson City (9-6, 2-2) is back in action Thursday in a CMAC contest against Battle in Columbia.
In Monday’s JV game, Rock Bridge blanked Jefferson City 5-0.