Black Bears impress despite 2-1 loss

WARSAW — In Thursday’s girls soccer game, the River View Black Bears, looked like a totally different team than the one that lost 1-0 at Dover on Monday.

Against one of the better Division 1 teams in the state — Zanesville — the Black Bears held their own, despite losing 2-1.

“We were really disappointed in that loss,” Danielle Muhleman said. “We had to better ourselves and make sure we were ready for today.”

They came out ready to go, as the Black Bears, not only looked like the better team, but held an early first half lead. Freshman, Claire Warschauer got the Black Bears on the board with 25:41 to play in the half, with an impressive chip over Zanesville goalkeeper, Kenzie Newsom.

“(Claire) has some innate instincts,” River View coach Dave Kridler said. “In the course of the game you watch her of a lot of different things.”

After Warschauer’s goal, the Black Bears continued to keep up the pace. While, Zanesville tried to get the ball forward to their speedy attackers as much as they could.

“They have incredible speed,” Muhleman said. “It’s really hard to match that. We had to try really hard to keep them from playing balls down the flanks because once they did, they were gone.”

The most dangerous Blue Devil was Destiny Johnson, who has scored nine goals in the three games before this one, but their first goal didn’t come from her.

With about eight minutes left in the half the Blue Devils began to get into a rhythm and with 1:35 left in the half, Leikyn Dalponte got them on the board.

“It took us awhile to get adjusted,” Zanesville coach Todd Riley said. “We had some injuries, so we had some new kids in some new spots, so I think it took us a little time.”

Dalponte’s goal didn’t take away the feeling that the Black Bears were the better team for the majority of the half. While the shots on goal had Zanesville ahead (3-2), it was the Black Bears shape and possession that stood out.

“It was a shock to me because on paper we are not the better team,” Kridler said on the first half. “It was our goal to reestablish our shape and not play so frantic, so I’m very proud of how we played.”

“I thought River View was the better team the first half,” Riley said. “We made some adjustments for the personnel we had and they dug deep.”

Again, in the second half, the first five or six minutes were dominated by the Black Bears, but once the Blue Devils got their feet on the ball they showed their superiority.

But, the Black Bears goal keeper, Lauren Krystek kept them in the game, coming off her line to cancel the Blue Devil’s speed.

Krystek couldn’t do it all game, as Johnson, with 10:32 to play got some space and dribbled right by her defender and the goalkeeper giving the Blue Devils the gamewinning goal.

“Destiny has such a good first touch that we didn’t want to let her get up to speed, but then we started letting her. In some ways that was her superior skills, but you have to take a direct line to the ball if you can’t run with her,” Kridler said.

But despite the loss, Kridler said the Black Bears are in a much better place than they were after Monday’s loss.

“In the summer we thought we were doing very well and we feel like we are back to the team we were then,” Muhleman said.

cteaguerob@gannett.com

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Twitter: @cj_teague