FREMONT – One win, even a season-opener against a rival, does not make an entire season.
Fremont Ross’ soccer teams both found that out Monday afternoon.
Both girls co-coach Abby Schratt and boys coach Alex Coressel said their respective teams were feeling a little too good about themselves following season-opening victories over Sandusky on Friday.
As a result, each team came out unfocused and lackadaisical Monday against Sandusky Perkins.
The girls lost 3-1 while the boys fell by a 4-2 score.
“I think were still excited we won our first game and they came out thinking, ‘OK, we can do this,’ and (Perkins) came out, bumping them around and they’re not used to it,” Schratt said.
“They got into our heads. They came out strong, ready to play and tough and I don’t think we were.”
Sarah Warson
Despite Perkins’ girls controlling much of the first half, the Pirates only led 1-0 at halftime thanks to a goal scored on a penalty kick.
But as match progressed, Perkins remained a step or two ahead of Ross and fired 20 second-half shots at keeper Sarah Watson, who made seven saves after halftime. Were it not for Watson’s play in goal, the score could have been much more lopsided.
“(Watson) came out of her box a lot, which is nice,” Schratt said. “She was aggressive, not afraid of anything and that’s just who Sarah is, she’s not afraid of anything. Without her, we would have (lost badly).”
Trailing 3-0, Ross scored when Ellie Bloom sent a nice pass to Jadyn Rozzell who buried it in the net with less than 19 minutes to play. Ross had a couple other scoring opportunities but shot high and wide.
“We don’t stick with our marks,” Schratt said. “Whenever they attacked us, it was always two on one, so only one of us and two of them, because no one was sticking on their marks.
“(Tuesday’s practice) will be marking and lots of running because we were way too tired out there. Way too out of shape.”
As for the boys’ match, the Little Giants did a quality job controlling the ball, but scoring opportunities were not as prevalent as they could have been given the amount of time spent on Perkins’ territory.
Alec Slemmer
“We came out super-slow,” Coressel said. “We were trying to do our own thing instead of playing as a team and it showed.
“Mentally I don’t think they were ready to play tonight. I think it was partially over-confidence from Friday night.”
Perkins led 1-0 at halftime despite being outshot by Ross. The Pirates added to their lead in the second half before Ross cut the deficit on a goal by Alec Slemmer. A short time later, a miscommunication led to a Perkins own-goal, tying the game at 2.
“(The second half was) a lot more of the same, unfortunately,” Coressel said. “We got the ball forward, Slemmer scored and we got a little bit more energy. They scored the second one, got us a little more but, from there, we broke down overall and let two more go.
“(We) were way too loosey-goosey getting ready and we started way too slow. We only had three or four guys attacking the ball hard, the other guys just kind of ran in space. They wanted it a lot more than we did.”
Both soccer teams are 1-1 on the season and travel to Port Clinton Wednesday. The boys begin the doubleheader at 5 p.m. with the girls playing at 7.