Girls soccer: Burlington Central rolls over Johnsburg

Domination.

Scoring 4 goals in the first 10 minutes, Burlington Central cruised past Johnsburg 8-0 in Kishwaukee River Conference girls soccer action in Johnsburg Wednesday afternoon.

"We have smaller goals in games like this," said Central coach Jess Arneson, whose team finished third in Class 2A last season. "We wanted to get off to a good start and score early. I like our focus to start the game and we were able to get everybody in the game and everybody a lot of playing time. We are off to a very good start this season and I like our focus."

With only 4 minutes, 23 seconds elapsed in the game, Madelyn Menke converted a perfect pass from Reagan Oller to give the Rockets (6-1, 1-0) a 1-0 lead. Megan Majewski tallied 2 goals off assists from Oller and the Rockets led 3-0 with 31:55 left in the first half. Oller, who had 3 assists for the day, scored an unassisted goal at the 30:26 mark to give the Rockets a 4-0 advantage.

Central pelted 18 shots on Skyhawk goalie Gillian Battaglia all in the first half.

Central scored four more times in the first half. The Rockets got 2 goals from Jessica Clouser each assisted by Kyla Butler and a goal each by McKenzie Freeman and Isabella Hartmann while Renee Becker registered an assist.

Johnsburg didn't get any shots on goal against the Rocket defense thus Central goalie Erin Rafferty didn't make any saves.

"We wanted to come out early and take control of the game and not give Johnsburg any chance," said Majewski. "We have smaller goals and we wanted to score four goals in the first 10 minutes. We came out with great focus and aggressiveness and took care of business. We are off to a very good start and have some tough upcoming games against bigger schools which will test us. We have a lot of very good players back but we have a good group of freshmen who have a lot of talent and are meshing in together well. We are not even thinking about the state tournament right now. We have regular season goals and goals in the conference to accomplish."

The Rockets have games against Class 4A defending champion Barrington in Barrington and contests against 4A powers Naperville Central and Loyola coming up in the near future.

"We need to see how we stack up against some of the top teams in the state," said Arneson. "Barrington at the Barrington Tournament and games against Naperville Central and Loyola are games we are looking forward to. We think those games will make us better and get us ready for the postseason."