SPENCERVILLE – Spencerville had not won a girls soccer match since August entering play Thursday evening but got back on the winning track as they defeated visiting Delphos St. Johns 5-1 at Memorial Field behind four goals from Raigan Staup.
Back to as close to being full strength and fully staffed as they have been in quite some time the Bearcats got the scoring started with 25:15 to go before the half on a lead pass from Sydney LeMar through the heart of the Blue Jays defense that senior Raigan Staup blitzed past keeper Reagan Ulm to give her team a 1-0 lead.
Staup notched her second goal of the game with 7:51 before the halftime break for a 2-0 Spencerville lead as she picked up a bouncing ball and raced to the south end of the field for her second score of the contest and team high sixth of the season.
Despite outshooting the hosts by a big margin the Blue Jays found themselves behind on the scoreboard 2-0 at halftime thanks to the play of Bearcat goalkeeper Emma Core who finished with 13 stops on 14 DSJ shots in the game. St. Johns also accumulated 11 corner kicks in the game to just a pair for Spencerville.
Early on in the second half Staup picked up a hat trick as she roped a bouncer to the left side of Ulm and to the back of the net to run the lead to 3-0 Spencerville with 34:38 left.
In four previous meetings in the series, all won by the Bearcats, the Blue Jays found themselves unable to score as they were outscored 27-0 entering Thursday evening.
St. Johns pushed across their first goal of the game and the series with 15:08 as Kylie O’Connor kicked her team high tying eighth goal of the year past Core to pull her squad within 3-1.
Spencerville’s lead grew back to three goals with 11:05 to go in the second half on the fourth of Staup’s career high four goals as the senior was able to continue to battle with Ulm and a defender before taking away the ball and depositing it into the back of the net for a 4-1 Bearcat lead.
Asked about the scoring performance Staup said “It was very different, especially because I was never seen as a “scorer”. It was an awesome feeling though as we finally had most of our team back after having everyone hurt or having to play short in games most of the season.”
One of the players who was back on the pitch and contributing to the success on this night was the returning Ariana McMichael who took a pass from LeMar and sent a lroller across the defense and a sliding Ulm and into the net to provide the final marker of a 5-1 victory with 6:25 remaining.
Delphos St.Johns falls to 4-10 on the season and will head across town on Saturday morning for a 10:00 A.M. showdown with rival Delphos Jefferson next.
Spencerville improves to 2-9 overall and will next be in action on Saturday evening when they travel to NWC foe Crestview for a Saturday night 7:00 P.M. contest in Convoy.
“It felt amazing for us to finally get a win after our losing streak” exclaimed Staup after the last home game for she and her senior class teammates at Memorial Field.