Short-handed Lady Bulldogs split two games

By DAVID ERICKSON / Whitefish Pilot

The Lady Bulldogs suffered a tough home loss on Friday to a talented Billings team, but bounced back nicely on Saturday to defeat Laurel.

Due to injuries and other issues, several JV players made their first varsity starts. The girls move to 2-1-0 overall on the season, with their first conference game on Thursday in Bigfork. They travel to Hamilton on Saturday.

Whitefish 4, Laurel 2

Carly Lengstorf bounced back on Saturday after being shut out the night before, notching two goals against the Lady Locomotives at Smith Fields.

"We out shot Laurel quite handily," head coach Lini Reading said. "They got one goal on a penalty kick, so we looked all right."

On the penalty, Laurel's Lexi Day had a clean break to the goal. Whitefish defender Haylee Murphy took down Day to prevent her from going unopposed to the net.

"It was a clean foul, but she didn't realize she was in the box," Reading said.

Lengstorf started things off for Whitefish in the 26th minute off an assist from Meredith Reed to take the early lead.

Jordan Carper took an assist from Meagan Powell in the 29th minute to score, and Linnaea Keane took an assist from freshman Sam Dittman in the 40th minute. Dittman also assisted Lengstorf for the final goal in the 45th minute. All of the Lady Bulldog's goals came in the first half.

Whitefish out shot Laurel 20-8.

Billings Central 4, Whitefish 0

The Lady Bulldogs were missing several starters on offense Friday night, and it didn't help that they were playing a talented Billings team.

"If you look at the statistics, the game was a lot closer than 0-4," Reading said. "We had several shots go just wide of the net. Their goalkeeper made several athletic saves that were just unbelievable. We were standing on the sidelines going, 'There's no way she just made that save.'"

Lengstorf and Megan Apple both rocketed a couple shots off of the top crossbar as well.

Reading said that while it is never good to get a loss, this isn't a bad time of year to suffer a setback.

"We have some things to work on," she said. "This game showed us what we need to do. It's still early. We have time to fix the things that we need to fix."

Apple suffered an eye injury in the game. She'll be fine, but Reading had to send some inexperienced kids onto the field.

"We didn't play our best game, but considering the circumstances, we held up pretty well," she said. "We gave up a couple fluke goals, and they capitalized on our mistakes."