FORTVILLE — It took just over five minutes in their home opener for the Mt. Vernon girls soccer team to finally get on the scoreboard.
After going scoreless in a season-opening 1-0 loss to Chatard on Saturday, the Marauders netted their first goal of the season just 5:34 into Thursday’s home game against Tipton, played on the turf of the football field due to wet field conditions.
Shay Shipley found the back of the net to start things off. Rylie Pearson added to the Mt. Vernon lead with just over six minutes left in the first half, a half in which the Marauders launched just shy of 20 shots at the Tipton net but missed openings on several opportunities.
Mt. Vernon pulled away in the second half, improving to 1-1 on the season with a 5-0 win against the Blue Devils.
“We’ve got to improve on our shooting. Our conversion rate could be done better,” Mt. Vernon coach Steve Williams said. “I can’t complain about the possession; we seemed to own a lot of the play, but shooting is one of the things we’ll fix. Not a bad result, and we got to play everybody and clear the bench, but we’ve got a lot of things to work on.”
The Marauders launched 37 shots in the game, with just over half coming on goal. They dominated time of possession and controlled the pace of play throughout, but saw some shots that looked like they would be goals sail wide or high of the net.
The Mt. Vernon defense held Tipton to just one shot on goal, with Maddie Swingle seeming to get involved frequently when the ball made it to the back line of the defense.
“The ball gets back to Maddie, she finds a way to get it out,” Williams said. “She can kick long or possess out of the back. That was pretty good. Our defense did well getting the ball out.”
With half an hour remaining in the game, the offense sparked to life again, as Katie Gawrys and Shipley doubled the lead within a minute of one another. The two scored with a pair of long-range shots from several yards outside of the box, easily beating the Tipton keeper.
Shay Stindle added the final goal of the game, scoring with just over two minutes remaining to push the margin to five.
The win was the third in a row for Mt. Vernon over the Blue Devils, and it was the first shutout. The Marauders won by an 11-1 score in 2017 and a 7-1 margin in last year’s contest.
Up next for Mt. Vernon is a Saturday morning game against Franklin. They’ll try to take the positives from Thursday’s win and work on cleaning up some mistakes as they prepare for that game and for their first Hoosier Heritage Conference game, a Monday tilt against county rival Greenfield-Central.
“It’s just connecting the dots a little better, getting players used to each other on the field,” Williams said. “Just tidying up those little things, the finishing touches. As we get down the road, I’m sure we’ll clean most of those things up.”