The Lady Cadets soccer team (5-4, 3-1 ICC) traveled to Cardinal Ritter High School last night to play the girls soccer game that was originally scheduled on August 24th but was canceled due to the heat advisory across Central Indiana. The Lady Cadets are coming off a 0-0 tie against Northview and learning that they would have another tough path to an IHSAA Sectional championship. Playing two ICC schools at the end of the season will help get the team focused on improvement and gaining positions in the ICC standings. The Lady Cadets are currently sitting in third place, one game behind Speedway, and have a chance to finish in second place if the team plays well in their last two games of the season. Coming into the game with Cascade, Cardinal Ritter has played a difficult private school schedule and has a record of 4-9 (0-5 ICC) With the Lady Cadets struggling for most of the season to score goals, the Cadets cautiously built up their offensive momentum against Cardinal Ritter in hopes to the right formation that would give the Cadets a commanding victory. The Cadets started out in a more defensive formation for the first 10:00 of the game to prevent getting behind the weaker team. Soon the Cadets’ coaching staff realized that the best players on Cardinal Ritter’s team could be offensively limited with a stronger presence in the midfield and formation changes were made. As Cascade adapted their offensive formation to keep better pressure in the defensive third of the Lady Raiders, the Cadets scored their first goal of the game when Anna Burns struck a strong shot into the upper right corner of the goal. This 1-0 lead helped the Cadets move more players into the offensive attack and completely dominated the midfield area of the pitch. As the Cadets kept up the attacking pressure in the late minutes of the first half, frequent crossing passes and well placed lobs into the box went just beyond the reach of the running Cadets and it looked like the 1-0 lead would remain at the half. But Creedance Chittenden recovered an extended pass deep in the attacking end and shot the ball into the corner of the net with just under a minute remaining in the first half. The 2-0 lead helped energize the Cadets at half and the team agreed to remain in their offensively heavy formation to keep the pressure up. As the Cadets got more confident and the Lady Raiders became more frustrated with the outcome of the game, Creedance Chittenden was able to score two more goals (27:39 and 23:12) to put the Cadets up 4-0. Creedance’s three goals on the night gave her a team leading third career hat trick game. The final goal for Creedance’s was set up by an awesome pass from McKenna Potters who lobbed the ball over the Cardinal Ritter defense and into the path of Creedance’s run toward the goal. As the Cadets expanded their lead to 4-0 over Cardinal Ritter, the Cadets were able to get some additional subs onto the field and rest their key players for the game against Speedway. The final goal for the Cadets would come from Vayla Mansfield who would get her second goal of the season when the Ritter goalie bobbled her shot right in front of the near post. Vayla’s goal made the score 5-0 and the game clock went into a “continuous clock” countdown. As the subs of the Cadets got some needed game time, the Lady Raiders were able to score two goals against the Cadets and cut into the 5-0 lead. The game ended with a 5-2 victory for the Cadets and the team got ready to jump back on the bus for a late night arrival back at the school. The 5-2 win for the Cadets was a huge step toward a strong end of the season. With a regular season record of 6-4 and 4-1 in the ICC matches, the Cadets can finish no worse than third in the ICC standings and they have a chance to finish second if they can defeat the Lady Sparkplugs on Thursday night. The win ended the four game winless streak for the Lady Cadets and will help build up some energy for the last couple games of the season. The Lady Raiders season record now stands at 4-10 (0-6 ICC) with one more game remaining before the start of the IHSAA Sectional competition. The Lady Cadets are now planning for the rugged stretch of games that starts with Speedway (2A #17) and will hopefully end in the Sectional Championship game on Saturday, October 7th. Currently, Cascade and Speedway are tied for 2nd place in the ICC standings and their recent regular season matchup has been an intense “championship” game. Cascade defeated Speedway in 2021 to win the ICC title and Speedway defeated Cascade in overtime last season to win the 2022 ICC title. Monrovia has already won the 2023 ICC title outright, so Thursday’s game will not be for an ICC championship but will still be a very competitive game. Game Summary Cardinal Ritter 0 - 2 2 Cascade 2 - 3 5 Goals/Assists: 1st H 23:27 - Anna Burns (8), A: Caitlyn Russell (1) 1st H :28 - Creedance Chittenden (3), A: Anna Burns (4) 2nd H 27:39 - Creedance Chittenden (4) 2nd H 23:12 - Creedance Chittenden (5), A: McKenna Potters (1) 2nd H 10:51 - Vayla Mansfield (2)