'Rough' night for Dogs

CELINA - Entering Monday's revival of the boys' edition of the Grand Lake soccer derby, St. Marys had not beaten Celina since the sectional final at Wapakoneta in 2013.

In the last five matches since that win, the Roughriders had only scored one goal  in going 0-3-2 during that stretch.

It took just under seven minutes for the Roughriders to exorcise one ghost with the go-ahead goal and then exorcised another with three more goals in the second half to win a physical 4-0 contest over the Bulldogs at the soccer stadium.

St. Marys improved to 8-2-2 and 4-2-1 in the Western Buckeye League as Celina drops to 1-5-1 in the WBL and 5-6-2 overall.

"We've needed it," St. Marys coach Dave Ring said about getting the win "We've been the top two dogs in the league the last four years (St. Marys won WBL titles in 2013 and 2014, Celina won last season and was second in 2015). It's nice to finally get (the win). Our seniors went out the way I wanted them to."

From the get-go, the game was physical, resulting in officials issuing four yellow cards on the night, three of them going against Celina players.

"It was physical. It's what you expect in a Celina-St. Marys matchup," Celina coach Ryan Jenkins said. "We had some chances. Just couldn't break through."

With nearly seven minutes gone in the opening half, the Roughriders struck thanks to an Austin Wilker throw-in. The ball deflected off a Celina player and headed to the goal, where Evan Vogel got enough of a toe on the ball to put it into the back of the net with 33:10 left in the half to give St. Marys its first goal against Celina since 2014.

"Wasn't a pretty goal, but we'll take them any way we can," Ring said. "Wilker's throw-ins are pretty dangerous."

After the goal, both teams shored up the defense. Derek Truesdale made two saves for Celina in the first half and Roughrider keeper Henry Spencer made two saves before having to leave the game at halftime due to injury.

Wilker struck again with a throw-in. This time, Austin Drummond was the last Roughrider to touch the ball, putting it past the far side of Truesdale with 31:18 left in regulation to make it 2-0.

"At halftime, we talked about it being just a one-goal difference," Jenkins said. "We had some chances early that could have made it 1-1, but we couldn't get the equalizer."

Celina had chances to score a goal after the second St. Marys goal. On two occasions, Sean Sawmiller was inside the box with a solid shot attempt against substitute keeper Luke Vondrell, the first with 25 1/2 minutes to play was saved by Vondrell. Then with 17 1/2 minutes to go, Sawmiller kicked one just wide of the net.

The third St. Marys goal came via another Wilker throw-in. Parker Enoch got the score with 12 1/2 minutes to go to give the Roughriders the most goals in a match against Celina since having won a 2013 tournament game 2-0. With 5 1/2 minutes left, Sam Young took a pass from Vogel and put the ball into the back of the net to wrap up the scoring.

Vodrell made four saves in the second half to preserve the Roughriders' shutout win.

"Beautiful!" said Ring. "Luke coming in after Henry got hurt was huge. Max (Mielke) was playing with a bad knee. So many things came together. ... Couldn't be prouder of this team."

"(Vondrell) stepped up and made some big saves," Jenkins said. "We kept pushing and the difference was they finished theirs and we couldn't finish ours."

St. Marys also captured the junior varsity match with a 3-1 victory.

Both teams are back in league play on Thursday. Celina travels to Van Wert and St. Marys returns to Roughrider Field to take on another group of Bulldogs from Defiance.