Freshman Meg Heinisch showed some great improvement in Wawasee’s 0-0 draw with Manchester. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – There was certainly a bad taste in the mouths of players from both the Manchester and Wawasee girls soccer teams Tuesday night. The two squads played an entertaining, back and forth contest but would see it conclude as a 0-0 draw.

Both teams had their chances during the contest. Manchester seemed to control the ball for the majority of the first half but never got a good look at the goal thanks to some surprisingly good play from an unexpected group of players. With some pregame injuries looming Wawasee was forced to play a few freshmen early and also was without starting goalie Nicole Streby for part of the first half.

Kayla White stepped in for Streby and did a fine job protecting the net. The flurry of freshmen that saw time early on also kept Manchester out of the box and managed to hold things over until Streby and some other more experienced players returned to the field.

Sarah Lancaster works her way up field for the Lady Warriors.

Wawasee also had a chance or two in the opening half to make some noise but the Lady Warriors true opportunities came after the break. The home team flipped roles in that second half and controlled tempo over the Squires but still could not find the back of the net, though that was not due to a lack of chances.

The Lady Warriors missed several chances at breaking the nil-nil tie throughout the final 40 minutes. Leign-Ann Shrack, a junior, had the best look of any player all night when she took a pass from Sarah Lancaster and sent it to the far side of the goal away from a hustling Squire keeper. There was no way the goalie would catch up to it but the ball narrowly rolled past the far post and out of bounds.

The best move in goal for the evening came from Streby who found herself without defensive support after Manchester’s Carsyn Howard broke away and attempted to give the Squires the lead, Steby made the decision to come out and force Howard to shoot over her. Howard accepted the challenge and sailed her shot high and to the right.

“Overall I thought our defense played very well,” said Wawasee head coach Doug Heinisch. “Manchester had one good break in the second half but Nicole (Streby) made a nice play and they ended up missing the shot.

“They (Manchester) controlled that first half. The second half, I thought was more in our favor. Leigh-Ann had a really nice shot that I thought was going in. Sarah had a couple of really nice crosses. Meg (Heinisch) actually had a really nice shot that just went over.”

Heinisch later talked about his underclassmen that stepped up early on in the game and how nice it was for his team to finally have some depth on the roster.

Wawasee (2-1-1) will travel to Concord Saturday to begin Northern Lakes Conference play in a game that Heinisch will be a challenge.

“We’re going up about five levels in our next game,” Heinisch said. “But that’s part of playing in the NLC. We’re playing better, but we can play a lot better than we did today. Concord kind of psyches us out for some reason. We need to get past that. Last year playing against Concord was our worst game of the year, I remember it too well. We can’t let them intimidate us this time around.”

Manchester’s Brooklyn Howard gets the ball to a teammate.