The Lady Cadets soccer team (5-4, 3-1 ICC) hosted the Northview Lady Knights in their first home game in over two weeks. The home game is part of the Senior recognition activities that included a dinner last night. The Northview Lady Knights come into tonight’s game with a record of 6-5 and an up and down season that has been riddled with injuries. For the IHSAA State tournament, Northview plays in 2A Sectional 29 which includes Monrovia, Edgewood, Owen Valley, Indian Creek, and West Vigo. These two teams have been competing against each other for almost all of the 20 seasons that Cascade has had a team and Northview has held a significant lead in the head to head matchup. Last season, the Lady Cadets played one of their best games of the season against Northview and won 5-0. The Lady Cadets and Lady Knights are having good seasons for 2023 but recent successes have changed each program’s view of a good season. The Lady Knights were Sectional champions back in 2021 and struggled last season to find wins across their tough schedule. The Lady Cadets were ICC and Sectional champions in 2021 and Sectional champions again in 2022. So this season’s record of 5-4 seems far from those lofty accomplishments of the past couple of seasons. But a good game tonight could help put some energy into each team as they look toward the end of the season. The intended style of play for the Lady Knights was displayed early in the game as the Knights made repeated attempts to play a through ball into the Cascade defensive third right in front of the goal. Most of these attempts never materialized into much of an offensive effort but a few did make it through the defensive line and challenged the Cadet goalie Zoey Wyneken but the shots were settled without much drama. For the whole of the night, the best offensive sequences for Northview came from the defensive mistakes the Cadets created by kicking the ball out of bounds near the end line. At the end of the first half, both teams were a bit frustrated in their offensive and defensive mistakes but they recognized the game was still up for grabs and only one chance could change the game completely. Play for much of the second half resembled the first half, inconsistent control of the ball in the midfield and an occasional pass into an attacking position by both teams. Small injuries and conditioning issues started to limit the offensive rhythms on both teams and the strong attacking runs in the first half started to diminish in the second half. This smaller, more limited game favored the Cadets and it appeared that the Cadets would finally get the first goal of the game. With about 12:00 remaining on the game clock, the Cadets got their best chance of the night to put the game away but failed to capitalize on the moment. A good offensive series for the Cadets led to the ball being deep in the Lady Knights end of the field and an Anna Burns lobbed shot landing in the Northview goalie’s hands. After this shot, Caitlyn Russell was able to regain possession of the ball around the midfield line and she looked to move the ball forward. Caitlyn Russell’s pass to Anna Burns set up an amazing forward pass to a streaking Creedance Chittenden who had timed her run perfectly and caught the ball without any Northview defenders around her. Creedance made two touches on the ball toward the goal and steadied herself to shoot the ball on the net. But Creedance’s shot barely missed the upper corner of the goal and flew over the goal. This miss was agonizing for the Cascade fans to witness but showed that if the Cadets remained calm, they would get more shots like that again. The ball bounced back and forth between the teams in the last minutes of the game with the Lady Cadets still managing to get some really good shots off at the goal; but they all failed to find the back of the net and the game ended in a 0-0 tie. The 0-0 tie between the Lady Cadets and Lady Knights was the first tie for both teams this season. The tie ended the three game losing streak for the Lady Cadets but also extended the winless streak now to four games. The Lady Knights season record now stands at 6-5-1 as they hope for a favorable Sectional game within the IHSAA Tournament that will be announced this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. The Lady Cadets also await the Sectional draw but they also look ahead to finishing out the 2023 season with two Indiana Crossroads Conference games. The first ICC game next week will be at Cardinal Ritter on Tuesday, September 26th and the season ending clash with Speedway will be a home game on Thursday, September 28th. Game Summary Cascade 0 - 0 0 Northview 0 - 0 0 Goals/Assists: