Bemidji Shuts Out Pirate Girls Soccer at Home

The Crookston Pirate Girls Soccer team played a tremendous first half, but the powerful Bemidji Lumberjacks scored nine second-half goals to beat the Pirates 11-0 in a Section 8A match-up played at the Crookston High School Soccer Field.
The first half was the best half the Pirate girls had played so far this season and they were able to keep the play in the middle third of the field most of the half.  At the halfway point of the first half, Bemidji tallied their first goal when Peyton Oelrich scored on a cross for a 1-0 lead.  Five minutes later, Bemidji scored again for a 2-0 lead.  Nobody scored the rest of the half and Bemidji led by two goals.  “We played fantastically and we came in and played as I asked them to,” said Pirate Coach Sarah Reese. “We really took away their shot opportunities and the two goals they scored were nice goals.”
The second half proved to be much different as Bemidji seemed to wear down the Pirates with their depth and older players and scored five minutes into the second half and added eight more goals throughout the rest of the half for an 11-0 victory.  “Bemidji has a lot of very talented players and they have some veteran players and they have 13 juniors and six seniors and that was evident in the second half,” said Coach Reese. “There were times that we physically wore down and they took advantage of it.  We were a step behind and that hurt us.  The girls played hard, but we ran into a very good team today.”
Crookston drops to 0-4-1 on the year and will travel to East Grand Forks on Tuesday.  Bemidji improves to 7-0 on the year and they have outscored their opponents 37-4 so far this season.

Reese Swanson beats a Bemidji player to the ball    Mackenze Epema chases down the ball
(Pictures by Dave Emanuel of Wildfire Photography)

Scoring
20:00 – Bemidji – Peyton Oelrich (Rebecca Ritter)
25:00 – Bemidji – Sophia Morin
45:00 – Bemidji – Aliya Berard (Liberty Dickerson)
51:00 – Bemidji – Aliya Berard
55:00 – Bemidji – Rebecca Ritter
62:00 – Bemidji – Peyton Oelrich (Hailey Nelson)
65:00 – Bemidji – Peyton Oelrich (Emma Neubeck)
69:00 – Bemidji – Emma Neubeck (Sophia Morin)
71:00 – Bemidji – Liberty Dickerson (Sophia Morin)
78:00 – Bemidji – Peyton Oelrich
79:00 – Bemidji – Damaris Berg (Hailey Nelson)