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Wildcats no match for Titans in district opener

News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Traverse City West Midfielder Makenna DeVries (2) advances a ball up field past Alpena defender Erin Bailey during a girls district soccer game on Tuesday at Wildcat Stadium.

For the second time this season, it was the Jaelyn Dobrowolski Show at Wildcat Stadium as the star freshman played a key role in leading Traverse City West to a convincing 8-0 victory against the Alpena girls soccer team in the opening round of districts on Tuesday.

“Obviously it’s not a mystery when we’ve lost to them (West) two other games by mercy rule so I can’t really say it was a mystery that this was potentially inevitable,” Alpena coach Tim Storch said. “We played hard in the first half and then falling behind even more early in the second half certainly didn’t help. West is a quality team. They have got some athletes that we aspire to have in the future. They are a lot bigger, faster and stronger than we are.”

The Titans dominated play from the opening whistle and after a brief downpour, Dobrowolski scored the game’s first goal just under 10 minutes into the half and she was just getting started.

Six minutes later, Dobrowolski netted her second goal to put West up by two midway through the half and after another six minutes went by, Dobrowolski recorded a hat trick with her third goal to put the Titans up 3-0 with 18:47 left in the half.

West continued the pressure despite Dobrowolski sitting the remaining 18 minutes of the half and the Titans held onto their three goal lead after one half of play.

Just 33 seconds into the second half, Dobrowolski netted her fourth consecutive goal of the game to extend the Titans lead.

A flurry of goals followed as Mackenna DeVries scored five minutes later to put West up five and the Titans remained aggressive and came away with another goal 24 seconds later after Maddie Parker cashed in on a penalty kick opportunity.

Exactly three minutes later, Parker capitalized on another penalty kick chance and scored her second of the game and put West up 7-0 with 31:10 left in the game.

After taking out a majority of its starters, the Titans ended the game with 18:05 left to play as Emma Gustafson found the back of the net to put an end to Alpena’s season.

“Looking at the totality of the season, we won nine games which was a three game improvement from last year and is the second most in program history and we did that with basically one senior starter,” Storch said. “Despite what the scoreboard indicates, Maren Winter did a great job tonight and all season and first thing will be to find a way to replace her and see what freshman we have coming in next year that could be impact athletes or who on the JV team may be able to step up.”

Despite a disappointing loss on their home field in the district opener, the Wildcats continue to show improvement each year and the program will look to continue improving in hopes of climbing the Big North Conference ladder after going winless in conference play this season and finishing with a 9-13-1 overall record.

“All 18 of our players got some playing time tonight and I think tonight shows them what it takes to become better at their game,” Storch said. “We need to have players that play year round and play at high levels during the offseason in order for our athletes and program to continue to improve.”

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.

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