By Don Cogger

Herald Sports Editor

It was a dinged-up version of the Evanston High School girls’ soccer team that hosted the Casper contingent over the weekend, and though the Lady Devils played hard, goals were hard to come by in back-to-back 4A West Conference losses.

Kelly Walsh started things off Friday, using a balanced attack to register an 8-0 shutout over the Lady Devils at Kay Fackrell Stadium. Evanston closed out play Saturday against Natrona County, falling to the Lady Mustangs 5-0.

“We’ve had some injuries,so we weren’t totally pieced together, I think,” said EHS head coach Karalynn Barton. “I would have liked to have seen us playing them if we were fully healthy. It could have gone better, but it could have gone worse, so there’s that.”

Barton said there were plenty of positives to be had from both games, as well as things to build on.

“It was kind of neat to see some of the other personal, individual things that happened, like putting Emma Davis in the Kelly Walsh game – she’s a JV player, but she’s been practicing with varsity,” Barton said. “She got thrown in there against the best team in the state, and I felt like she did a great job. We didn’t have a lot of offense, but how we were in our formation it would have been hard to get a good offense going, because we were kind of settled back. We just had so many girls in different positions that they don’t normally play.”

Midfield play was a strong point, according to Barton, as was defense. Missing key players on offense definitely hindered the Lady Devils’ offensive attack.

“I think if we had had Kayla Renova in there, we could have been able to push out more offensively against Natrona,” Barton said.  “And I felt like we were in more of our normal formation against Natrona, and I think the girls are more comfortable with that. We had a lot of good individual effort. I could probably name everybody on the team. I really felt like the Natrona game, Kinnley Hintze kind of took the game on and tried to get stuff going – the same with Jacey Bardsley. Bella Dover has been hurting – she sprained her quad, but has persevered through all of that. I felt like we had really good effort, but it could have been a bit demoralizing with the score.”

Barton had a handful of girls playing multiple positions, and they did so with nary a complaint.

“Celeste Ayala-Gomez, one of my other captains, she’s typically in my defense line,” Barton explained. “I moved her all over the place – she played midfield, she played wing and she played forward, so during those two games, she played three different positions; that’s hard to do. The other person that played different positions was Julia Barton, I had her moving through different positions, as well.”

Goalkeeper Adalee May had a busy weekend in net, and continues to get better with every game, according to Barton.

“There were two saves at Kelly Walsh, I mean, I don’t even know how she got ‘em, they were amazing,” Barton said. “When you look at the positive, we’re getting a lot of game experience with all the shots, so I see improvement with her every day.  She has such good, positive things to say about the team, even though some of those goals aren’t her fault. A lot of times with goalies, you can see them getting mad with the team, but she’s very uplifting and positive, and cheering everyone on, so she’s great. She does great mentally and physically back there.”

The Lady Devils will have another crack at both Casper teams coming up in a couple of weeks, and Barton said she’s excited to play both teams again, this time with a healthy roster.

“Kelly Walsh is a beast, I feel like we match up better against Natrona,” she said. “I do feel like if we had all of our moving parts where they should be, that should be the game that we’re in. It would have been fun to go up against that good of a team to see where we’re really at. But hopefully we have that opportunity next time we face Natrona.”

The Lady Devils host Star Valley Thursday in the final home game of the season; it’s also Senior Night, and Barton said a win against the Lady Braves would be something special for this group that’s been with her for four years.

“It would be amazing – these seniors that I have, most of them have been starters for three years, and most of them have been varsity players for four,” Barton said. “It would mean a lot. These girls have sacrificed a lot, and it’s just too bad our record isn’t showing what these girls have put in. if I could just clone each of those seniors – with their work ethic and everything else – we could have an amazing team. I just wish the season could be going better for them. If I put money, I could definitely say we could beat Star Valley. But I’ve learned to never say that, never say ‘we should win.’ It would be amazing, these girls have earned it. Hopefully, they can go out and get it.”