GREENTOWN — Few things beat a feast.
Scoring a landmark victory over a rival, though, that’s one of the few.
Eastern’s girls soccer team found cause to celebrate Tuesday, scoring a rare victory over Northwestern. The Comets came back from a two-goal deficit, tied the game with three minutes to go in regulation, then scored the winner in overtime to snag a 3-2 victory.
“It’s major. It’s like better than pizza and cake,” Eastern junior Brittney Anderson said. She scored Eastern’s first goal and then set up the Comets’ winner with a perfect cross to freshman Savannah Rees in the third minute of overtime.
Even after scoring a big win, it’s hard to top a dive into a dish of decadent food as a way of savoring life, so the Comets put Anderson’s theory to the test. The descended en masse — and mostly still in uniform — on Kelly’s Ice Cream to celebrate.
“This is absolutely huge,” Eastern coach Kevin Duggins said of the Comets’ first victory over the Tigers since he took over as coach. “[I] came here six years ago and every year this is the team that every senior group has wanted, even when we were getting beat 10-0 by them, every year this is the team they wanted. Especially for this group of 10 senior girls, this has to be the night of their high school life probably.”
The Comets tied the game deep in the second half after spending nearly the entire half camped in the Tigers’ half of the field. Alison Bowman pumped a shot on goal from outside the box. Her shot was deflected by a defender and broke to Jordan Powell who found the net with a one-timer from the left side of the box. Regulation ended tied at 2-2.
Just three minutes into the first seven-minute overtime period, Eastern took the lead when Anderson chased down a deep pass into the left corner. Without looking up, she delivered a pinpoint cross over Northwestern goalie Emily Allen. The pass found Rees steaming in from the weak side for a tap-in from close range.
“You couldn’t ask for a better goal to win on,” Duggins said. “Especially you couldn’t ask for a better team to win against.”
The Comets improved to 4-0 with the victory and 2-0 in the Mid-Indiana Conference.
“It was frustrating because we didn’t really play our game,” NW coach Kacy Slee said. “I’m missing two starters and another girl is out with a fever. I really only had one or two subs, so it really hurt us in the end because we were getting a little bit gassed. I think that’s what led ultimately to us getting scored on with a few minutes left.
“They were subbing every five minutes and we were subbing maybe once a half, and that will wear on you. To have all those girls play [94] minutes and come away the way we came away, with that fighting, I couldn’t be more proud of them right now.”
Eastern had progressively more of the ball as the first half wore on, then nearly all the possession in the second half and the two overtime periods.
“We talked more, and used our space and played our game finally,” Anderson said.
Northwestern (2-3, 0-1 MIC) went up 2-0 quickly on a pair of breakaways that left Eastern goalie Vanessa Dove exposed without a defender to help challenge a wide-open shot. The Tigers struck in the sixth minute when Krysta Rhea’s free kick beat Eastern’s offside trap and put Amanda Kuffell through for a comfortable finish. Nine minutes later, another Rhea through ball found Megan Nolder open on a break for a similar finish past a charging Dove.
After that, the Comets learned their lesson. Northwestern only got one more chance like that the rest of the game and when it happened, the Northwestern attacker found her breakaway chance smothered by four scrambling defenders.
On the other end, Eastern got back in the game with a goal from Anderson in the 23rd minute. She did well to control a long pass from Joy Sommers, rounded Allen and outraced a defender to score on an empty net.
Allen finished with six saves.
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