Parkersburg South junior Marie Silvis makes a move with the ball while being defended by University's Ava Gizzi during the Hawks' 1-0 victory Tuesday evening inside Erickson All-Sports Facility. The freshman Gizzi scored the lone goal of the match in the 54th minute. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Reece Waters and Kyrstin Boso had consecutive shots on goal to open the second half for host Parkersburg South here Tuesday evening inside the Erickson All-Sports Facility, but University keeper Caitlyn Stout finished with nine saves and a clean sheet as the Hawks left town with a 1-0 victory.

UHS head man Graham Peace’s squad not only got the shutout from Stout, but fellow freshman Ava Gizzi tallied her fourth goal of the season in the 54th minute when Lauren Goodenow got the ball ahead to teammate Gracie Oleksa, who found an open Gizzi in the middle of the field.

Parkersburg South, which reached the Class AAA state semifinals last fall, had a late shot on goal in the 80th minute by Averee Cross, but Stout got the save as the Patriots slipped to 0-1-1 with a 6 p.m. match set for Thursday at John Marshall.

“Defensively, I thought we did better in the second half,” said South boss Ron Bucholtz. “We left a few too many of their players open at the top of the 18 in the first half, and of course we’ve got a solid goalkeeper who was able to keep them off the board in the first half. We shored that up in the second half. They really didn’t get that many chances from up top. We had the better chances I think throughout the whole game, especially in the second half. Unfortunately we just shot it right at the goalkeeper at this point, but I think we had more chances today than we had in our first three games combined. Overall, I’m very pleased.

“We had one 15-second let off where we missed a ball coming out of bounds out of our defense and they quickly threw it in. The girls kind of let their foot off the gas and fell asleep at the wheel as it were. Credit to them. They connected three or four passes and found a girl wide open who hit the corner. It’s unfortunate, but we’ve worked on making sure you are ready to play even when the ball goes out of bounds. Then you take a rest once you delay the restart of the opponent because they can put the ball in play quickly. That’s exactly what they did. It’s unfortunate that it came down to a 10-15 second kind of let off on our part, but they took advantage of it.”

Parkersburg South senior keeper Emilee Owens leaps to make one of her 11 saves during the Patriots' 1-0 setback to University on Tuesday evening inside Erickson All-Sports Facility. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

University is off to a 3-0 start for the 10th-year head coach Peace, whose Hawks return to action at 5 p.m. Thursday at Linsly.

“We’re thrilled. We’ve had a lot of turnover in the program,” Peace said. “We’ve got a lot of freshmen playing so we didn’t know what we had. We’re still a work in progress and Park South is always a tremendous team. They are extremely well coached.

“Ron does a great job with that group of ladies so we knew it was going to be tough coming in here. The freshmen keep stepping up and impressing us. Their goalie was also awesome. She kept them in the game and made some tremendous saves. That was impressive.”

South keeper Emilee Owens, who finished with 11 saves in the match, made stops in the first half on seven different Hawks as Libby Murray, Siena Mahle, Mairin Gillispie, Sydney Blohm, Gizzi, Avery Alexander and Goodenow (twice) were turned away.

“We’ve got a young team this year,” admitted coach Bucholtz. “Rebuilding year, obviously, from previous years, but we’re making improvements. It’s going to be a long process. We’ve still got two months to get the whole team in ship-shape going into the playoffs and that’s what we aim for.

“Keep making improvements. I thought of the four games we’ve had, two scrimmages and the first two games, I think this was our best effort overall. We connected more passes. The girls played with better composure. I was pleased to see that.”

Stout made a quartet of saves following intermission, which included a shot from Marie Silvis, who had the first South shot on goal in the 24th minute. Karissa Epperly had three shots on goal in the opening half and Boso had one.

“Stay patient,” coach Peace said of his message to his team at the break. “We knew that Parkersburg South had a great defense and a terrific goalie so we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to break them down and score. We told our girls to try and get some width because we felt like Parkersburg South was clumping us up in the middle and doing a great job of defending there, so we wanted to try and generate some width. Now the irony is we scored the goal straight down the middle, but we were trying to get some width and get in behind them.

“A lot of it is experience and these freshmen haven’t gone through any of this before and it’s a grind. We have five games in 11 days to start and they are not used to that, even with their club teams, so it’s a grind for them. We’re trying to get them used to that and prepare them. We also have Nikki Goodenow who is now coaching with us and has done a phenomenal job. She’s been a huge addition to the team and really helped us out.”

The Hawks had a trio of corner kicks, which were all taken by Goodenow. PSHS didn’t have one.

“Overall it’s a young team and we’re improving,” added Bucholtz. “I told the girls I was proud of their efforts today because overall it was our best effort. I knew they had a solid defense, but we created a fair number of chances on them.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com