Kelsey Eckenrode wasn’t sure how she ended up so close to the goal, but she wasn’t going to waste the only chance the Rock Bridge girls soccer team had in the second half.

"I was going to try and cross it back, but I thought the coaches might get mad, so I just shot it," Eckenrode said. "I was surprised that it got through."

Taking a pass from Erin Bucko, Eckenrode took a touch before powering a shot from 5 yards out off the hand of goalie Annie Struemph inside the near post for the lone goal in a 1-0 victory over Helias last night at Rock Bridge Field.

"This was huge. It definitely set a tone for the rest of the season," Rock Bridge Coach Kelly Gates said. "Our first game playing someone in our district, and to come out on top is huge."

After controlling play with the wind at their backs in the first half, the Bruins couldn’t sustain their momentum. Before the goal, Rock Bridge hadn’t gotten a shot off in the second half and was even struggling to get the ball across midfield. But in the 73rd minute, the Bruins (2-1) regained some of the fluid ball movement that had allowed them to get four shots on goal and four corner kicks in the first half.

"We had a lot of opportunities that were really, really close and so we went into the second half knowing that we had opportunities we needed to finish on," Bucko said.

Rock Bridge worked the ball out of the back and got the ball to Lauren Kelly on a run down the middle. Kelly sent a pass wide to Bucko on the right. After a first half of terrorizing the Crusaders with her pace, Bucko again found a hole in the defense.

"The first two games, we weren’t focusing on the outside wings as much, and today we knew that they would be pressuring us a lot in the middle," Bucko said. "So we focused on passing it out wide more this game, and it worked a lot more for us."

The senior dribbled to the touchline and tried to send a cross but was blocked by two defenders. The deflected ball landed at her feet, and she cut inside to deliver a pass to Eckenrode, who was playing up from her defensive central midfielder role, at the near post.

"They had a lot of opportunities all game. They came really close - it was just a matter of being patient and waiting for it," Gates said. "She came through and finished it."

With Helias coming off a 1-0 win over Hickman on Monday night, a Columbia sweep for the Crusaders would have left them sitting pretty in district play just three weeks into the season. Despite a 12-day layoff between games, the Bruins looked the sharper of the teams in the first half.

"We had a talk yesterday about preparing for the game, and they definitely were focused all day today," Gates said.

Rock Bridge avoided Helias’ defense in the middle of the field and looked for Bucko out wide. She made Struemph come through with a diving save in the 13th minute after she ran onto a through-ball and fired a shot to the far post.

Eckenrode and Alex Litofsky kept the attack moving in the first half as Rock Bridge found space to put pressure on the defense. That space disappeared in the second half as Helias tightened its defense and took advantage of playing with the wind at its back.

A defensive miscommunication forced Rock Bridge goalie Katherine Harris to make a sliding save at the top of the box seven minutes into the second half. Seven minutes later, Danielle Baumgartner pushed her flick of a cross just over the crossbar at the near post.

One minute before Eckenrode broke the deadlock, Kelsey Mueller launched a 32-yard free kick that hit off the crossbar and was cleared.

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