For their fifth game of the season, the Lady Cadets soccer team (3-1, 1-1 ICC) traveled to Triton Central (4-0, 1-0 ICC) for their last game against the Lady Tigers. With Cascade leaving the Indiana Crossroad Conference after this year, the long journey and games between the schools will become part of athletic legends of the past. In the whole series, the Lady Cadets and Lady Tigers have faced off four times with Cascade holding a 3-1 advantage over Triton Central. Last season, the Cadets held off an offensively talented Triton Central team 3-2 in a fast paced game that went down to a game winning goal scored by Creedance Chittenden in the second half. Wins over much larger Connersville, Beech Grove, Warren Central, and Rushville, the Lady Tigers from Triton Central were showing how much they’ve been improving as a program and they looked to continue their strong start of the season with a final victory over the 15th ranked Cadets. The early minutes of the game showed the strengths of the Lady Tigers offense as they moved the ball with excellent passing motion and kept the ball away from the Cadets midfield players. As Triton Central controlled the ball, the back four defensive players for Cascade had to be more patient and wait for their chance before they could try and win the ball back. Good shots by the Tigers started to open up some of the Cadet defense but none of the shots got past the Cascade goalie. As the defense started to gain confidence holding off the Tigers’ offensive rhythm, the offensive action by the Cadets started to heat up and pressure the Tigers’ defensive pace. With passes originating well back of the Tigers’ defensive space, the Cadets started to use one touch movements to run past the Tigers and get shots onto the Triton goalie. Ainsley Engel had two good shots in the first 20:00 that were saved at the last second but Ava Allen’s offensive effort with about 15:00 remaining in the first half led to the opening goal in the game. The Cadets were fouled as they were moving the ball in the Triton defensive third of the field and Anna Burns stepped back to take the restart kick. As Anna kicked the ball toward the goal, Ava Allen turned just in time to see the Triton goalie drop the ball right in front of her. Ava then lunged forward and struck a solid shot into the back of the goal giving the Cadets a 1-0 lead late in the first half. The second goal for the Cadets came from another restart when Anna Burns struck an excellent shot just a bit deeper than the shot from which Ava Allen scored. The Triton goalie in both of these first half goal scoring situations was staring directly into the sun and might have lost some tracking of the ball but Anna’s shot was well placed enough that the goalie couldn’t make a solid attempt on the ball. With just under 4:00 remaining in the first half, the Cadets were up 2-0 and frustrating the Lady Tigers just enough to keep them off of the scoreboard. Halving the 2-0 deficit was the primary goal of Triton Central at the start of the second half and they used physical play and quick passing to achieve their first goal of the game. But this physical defense awarded the Cadets direct kicks in the first half that led to goals being scored. Early in the second half, Creedance Chittenden was fouled from behind and that allowed Anna Burns to line up another deep kick toward the Triton goal. Anna didn’t strike this shot as cleanly as her goal scoring shot in the first half but this shot still yielded the same result: a goal from a misplayed bounce by the Triton goalkeeper. The Cadets were now up 3-0 and a conference win looked more and more evident. As the second half progressed, the Cadets made defensive adjustments to keep the Lady Tigers working the ball back and forth but not toward the Cascade goal. These defensive adjustments befuddled the attack oriented Tigers and allowed the Cadets to use their athletic advantages to make deep offensive runs and eat the game clock. As the clock wound down, the Cadets defense and goalkeeper prevented all of the Triton Central scoring chances from really developing into serious chances and the game ended in a 3-0 victory for the Cascade Lady Cadets. The 3-0 victory for the Cadets gave Triton Central their first loss of the season as well as a key conference loss. The Lady Cadets (4-1, 2-1 ICC) now have some breathing room in the race for second place behind Monrovia. The Cadets look ahead to play one more ICC game before they move toward a string of non-conference games in the first three weeks fo September. The Lady Cadets now look ahead to hosting the Scecina Memorial Lady Crusaders on Wednesday, September 6th and then traveling to Greencastle on September 9th for a much anticipated rivalry game. The Crusaders are 2-2 on the season and 1-1 in ICC competition. The game at Scecina Memorial will start at 6:00 p.m. Game Summary Triton Central 0 - 0 0 Cascade 2 - 1 3 Goals/Assists: G: Ava Allen (1) 14:32 1st A: Anna Burns (1) G: Anna Burns (5) 3:43 1st G: Anna Burns (6) 35:19 2nd Highlight video link: https://www.maxpreps.com/in/clayton/cascade-cadets/soccer/girls/media/videos/?videoid=ecd4ca33-8100-4555-a664-e4a7ec882610