Makensi Martin’s goal the difference as Morris edges Streator

MORRIS – Throughout the first half and the first 20 minutes of the second half, the Morris girls soccer team had plenty of opportunities to score against Streator, but had not been able to find the back of the net.

Then Makensi Martin found herself on a breakaway.

The Morris senior was able to get a ball past Streator goalkeeper Lahla Thompson with 15:27 to play, and it turned out to be the only goal of the game in Morris’ 1-0 win Monday.

“We had a lot of scoring chances, but the ball just didn’t go in the net,” Martin said. “On most nights, we would have had more than one goal.

“I had a nice give-and-go with my sister [Dani]. She got me the ball when I was open and I took it the rest of the way. The way our defense was playing, we knew that one goal would do it.”

Thanks to the Morris defense, spearheaded by Cassie Bernal, Nicolette Boelman and Dani Martin along with midfielders Sarah Crisman, Makensi Martin and Kenzie Ahearn, goalkeeper Jordin Wilson was able to complete the shutout.

Almost every time the Bulldogs (0-2) were able to get the ball into Morris territory, the defense was able to get it out of its end and put Morris back on the attack.

Thompson had a big night for the Bulldogs, making 10 saves in goal to keep the game close.

“We had a feeling it was going to be a one-score game,” Streator coach JT Huey said. “Both of these teams are young and in a rebuilding stage, so it was probably going to come down to one big play, a breakaway or something like that, and they got it. And Morris’ defense is very strong and athletic and kept us from scoring.

“The nice thing was that we were playing a local, friendly team that is the type of competition we will play most of the year. We did a lot of good things today. When we look at the film, we will probably see some spacing issues, but those are things that we can fix. We just need to control what we can control and we will be OK.”

Morris (3-1) dominated the action in the first half, but Thompson turned away every threat, making six saves while her defense, highlighted by Jordan Hatzer, Joey Puetz and Katherine Bressner among others, turned away several Morris corner kicks and other scoring chances.

Meanwhile, the Morris defense limited Streator to two shots on goal in each half, with goalkeeper Wilson making two saves. One shot by the Bulldogs’ Audrey Arumbula went wide, and a direct kick by Arumbula from the 15-yard line went over the goal and hit the football crossbar.

“Our defense is very strong,” Makensi Martin said. “So far this season, we have been able to build off the defense and generate some offense from it.”

Morris coach Steven Custer also was pleased with the defensive effort.

“We have two things we want to do,” Custer said. “Keep the other team out of our end and keep possession on the 50-50 balls. We did both of those tonight. Especially in the second half, we pressed up on their goal kicks and were able to get almost all of those 50-50 balls.

“I told the girls that if we keep getting the ball in the other team’s end, the goals will come. We could have had more tonight, but we got one, and that was enough.”