It was a step toward achieving one of the big goals entering the soccer season for the Capital City Lady Cavaliers.
“This was a mountain you have to climb every year if you’re going to be relevant in the conference,” Capital City coach Travis Cairer said Thursday night after the Lady Cavaliers defeated the Rock Bridge Bruins 2-1 in Central Missouri Activities Conference action at Capital City High School.
“Winning the conference is important to us, we want to win it again.”
The Lady Cavaliers capitalized on some defensive pressure to score the first goal of the contest.
The Bruins had trouble getting the ball out of their own end after a goal kick. Gia Pardalos of the Lady Cavaliers was there to steal the ball and line it into the net a little more than 10 minutes into the contest.
“Pressure causes mistakes and I think we caused that one,” Cairer said. “We were getting the work done to cause it, make it difficult on them.”
Pardalos had the presence of mind to not rush the shot.
“She did a good job of tucking it away,” Cairer said. “We’ve struggled at times to put the ball into the back of the net at times. But she was able to put away that easy one.
“At least, it looked easy from the sideline.”
Rock Bridge had a great opportunity to tie the game about six minutes later when Capital City was whistled for a handball inside the penalty area in front of its own net.
“I don’t think there was any intent, I thought the arms were in on her body,” Cairer said.
But the ensuing penalty kick went just wide of the post on the left side.
“The soccer gods were on our side,” Cairer said.
Rock Bridge finished the first half with a 5-4 edge in total shots. The Bruins made repeated runs toward the Lady Cavaliers’ net, only to be turned away before finding anything dangerous.
“We’ve done a good job of getting back recently,” Cairer said. “We were covered in a lot of aspects back there.
“We might be giving up some opportunities, but we’re not giving up a lot of quality opportunities.”
The Bruins tied the game about six minutes into the second half when Madison Hendershott was able to knock in a rebound.
“Rock Bridge is a team that is always going to come at you, you’re going to have to thwart some opportunities,” Cairer said.
Capital City scored the game-winner with a little more than 12 minutes remaining.
Kirstin Chapman got the ball near midfield and drove down the left side. As Chapman got even with the top of the box, she centered a pass to Amaura Austell, who knocked a shot into the back of the net.
“That was a solid goal,” Cairer said.
Rock Bridge is now 5-5-1 overall, 3-1 in the CMAC.
Capital City (10-3, 3-1), No. 10 in Class 3 in the Missouri Soccer Coaches power rankings, was coming off a 2-1 conference loss Monday at Sedalia Smith-Cotton.
“That was a tough one,” Cairer said. “We knew that we had to play better tonight and we did.”
Capital City is back in CMAC action tonight against Hickman in Columbia. The varsity game will start at 6 p.m.
“The journey to the conference title just got a lot shorter with this one,” Cairer said. “But Hickman is always going to come with quality, we’re going to have to bring another big game.”
There was no JV game Thursday.