NorthWood’s Kali Parisi had a hat trick as the Lady Panthers beat Elkhart Christian Academy 10-0 Tuesday evening. (Photos by Mike Deak)

NAPPANEE – It became evident pretty quickly that Phil Ummel’s NorthWood girls soccer team was getting back on track. After a miserable loss Saturday to Elkhart Central, the Lady Panthers reversed roles against a short-handed Elkhart Christian Academy in a 10-0 romp Tuesday night.

NorthWood, which lost 6-0 Saturday to the Blue Blazers, struck early and often against an Eagles squad that had just 11 players in uniform. Kali Parisi opened the scoring seven minutes in, taking a pass on the wing and making a long sprint into space. With the ECA defense wide open, Parisi put her head down and made a run for net, burying a shot past a helpless Peyton Badskey.

Morgan Stickley

Parisi’s service to an unmarked Morgan Stickley in the penalty area two minutes later resulted in the second goal, and Stickley got her second a minute after that when Savannah Feenstra took a poor ECA clearance and slotted to the streaking midfielder.

Feenstra found Parisi for the fourth goal in the 25th minute as the flood gates were officially busted wide open.

Two goals from Caroline Jenkins and tallies from Stickley and Parisi made it 8-0 at the break.

“We were pleased the way we moved the ball,” Ummel said. “The last couple of games have been tough for us (against Central and Goshen, a 2-0 loss to the RedHawks Sept. 14). We talked about the adversity we have faced the last week coming into tonight, and how we wanted to move forward.”

Hannah Steinmetz and Cindy Barahona added second-half goals to round out the scoring, a complete NorthWood dismantling of the Academy. The Lady Panthers took 29 shots in the match, 26 of those on target. NorthWood also hit the crossbar twice, the post once and had two other 1-on-1 breakaways stuffed by Badskey, who did the best she could making 14 saves.

NorthWood’s Sydney Filley and ECA’s Shealey Skaggs

Ummel was also vocally interested in seeing his defense respond after Saturday’s disaster. The back line responded with its ninth shutout of the season, Kira Robinson covering both ECA shots and teammate Liliana Lomeli playing the final third of the contest to finish off the shutout in net. Marking jobs by Betsy Nunemaker and Jenkins helped keep ECA off balance on the offensive half.

“We needed to build on the discipline that we lacked the past couple of games,” Ummel said. “Tonight was our ninth shutout of the season and we are proud of that. We have strived for that every game this season, and have been blessed to be able to get nine of them so far.”

NorthWood, ranked No. 14 in Class 2-A, moves to 8-3-2 overall with a huge non-conference test Saturday against Culver Academy. The physical nature of CGA, which has pushed around NorthWood in recent years in the old sectional alignment, will likely give NorthWood a key test heading into the final week of the regular season.

“Culver Academy is going to move the ball around and be very physical, and we know that coming in,” noted Ummel. “This will be a very good test on the discipline we showed tonight, and lacked in some of our poor performances lately. This will let us know where we are at heading into the final week and the tournament.”