For the second straight season, Warrenton jumped out to an early lead and did not look back to beat Wright City in a battle of Warren County teams. 

Warrenton (3-14) used a pair of early goals to jump out to a lead they would not relinquish in their 3-1 win over Wright City (3-10) Monday. The win was Warrenton’s first win since their March 23 win against Mexico. 

“It’s really good because we haven’t had a win in all of April,” Warrenton girls soccer coach Amy Wargowsky said. 

Warrenton’s Kylie Overkamp scored just over two minutes into the game to give Warrenton a 1-0 lead. Camryn Petersmeyer scored in the 11th minute to give Warrenton a 2-0 lead, which they took into halftime. The Lady Warriors were able to execute through passes towards the Wright City goal to create offensive opportunities.

 “We forgot how strong the wind was because some of the balls we would send them and then they just had so much on them they ended up going out of bounds,” Wargowsky said. “But the ones that we did make the passes that we were looking to make, we capitalized on them.”

Warrenton scored the first goal of the second half to extend their lead to 3-0. Freshman Autumn Heard scored off a corner kick from Petersmeyer to extend Warrenton’s lead. Wargowsky thinks the third goal gave the Lady Warriors a cushion in the second half.

 “At halftime, I told them act like it’s 0-0,” Wargowsky said. “You can’t be thinking oh, we’re winning. We’ve seen teams that you go out with that attitude and then you end up losing.” 

The Lady Wildcats made a push later in the half to attempt to get back into the game. Wright City’s Carmelina Francisca Diego scored off a rebound with over 23 minutes left to pull the Lady Wildcats within two goals. Francisca Diego scored on the rebound after Warrenton goalie Emily Beumel stopped Wright City sophomore Paige Kirn’s shot attempt. Wright City created multiple other scoring chances but was unable to score a second goal. 

Wright City girls soccer coach Jacob Wallace noted the impact the slow start had on their chances in the game.

 “When we struggle to score in the first place, you cannot start 50%, 90%, 99%,” Wallace said. “You’ve got to start at 100%. We have such a habit of easing our way into games and seeing oh, this team can do this, they can do this. But I just told them at half, we can’t do that. We just need to have our standard of play. Our standard every single time.”

 Wallace said his focus for the Lady Wildcats heading into the final stretch of regular season games is improving how they start games and providing full effort for 80 minutes. Wallace stressed Wright City played up to their standard for the full 80 minutes in their games last weekend.

 “We’re at the point now where we have five or six subs,” Wallace said. “If they’re not giving effort, we can get someone else in there. Or if they’re giving 100% effort and they’re tiring out, we can sub them in and sub them out. It’s just providing the full effort for the full 80 minutes.”

Warrenton was slated to host St. Charles Tuesday before finishing the regular season with several non-conference games. Wargowsky wants to see the Lady Warriors focus on more passing, switching and using the players in the middle of the field the rest of the season. 

“When we do that, we’re successful,” Wargowsky said. “We just have to continue to do that.”