FINDLAY, Ohio — Alexis Bise and her Ontario teammates left nothing to chance Tuesday.
Bise scored in the third minute and added a second goal in the 10th minute and the Warriors sailed to a 5-0 victory over Millbury Lake in the Division II regional semifinals on an unseasonably mild evening at Findlay High School.
Ontario (19-1-1) will play Bay Village Bay for a regional title and a berth in the state semifinals at 3 p.m. Saturday at Brunswick High School. Bay beat Celina 7-0 on Tuesday in Lexington.
“It was exciting to score early and take them out of the game,” said Bise, who scored her 11th and 12th goals of the year. “That was the game plan, come in and take them out early and don’t give them a chance to come back.”
Tuesday’s match was a far cry from Ontario’s dramatic 2-1 overtime victory over Richland County rival Clear Fork in the district championship on Saturday. Bise scored the game-tying goal in the 79th minute before the Warriors struck again early in overtime.
“We told the girls to come out with a lot of energy … jump on them early and see if they can respond,” Ontario coach Larry Atkinson said. “And, boom, we get two quick. Alexis is just on fire right now.”
On the Board: Bise met with minimal resistance in giving Ontario a quick 1-0 lead with 37:48 to play in the first half. The sophomore took a pass from classmate Kait Schuster and easily beat Lake goal keeper Emily Lovell. He second score came off a Brittany McCauley corner kick with 30:15 remaining.
“That’s something we’ve worked on. We’ve tweaked a couple of things just to try to get a little better opportunities,” Atkinson said. “In the past we’ve always been really efficient on corner kicks and free kicks.”
Adding On: Ontario pushed its lead to 3-0 when Amanda Nething knocked in her 26th goal of the season off of a Bise free kick with 10:04 to play in the first half. Nething scored again with 6:02 left in the second half and McCauley capped the scoring with 3:04 remaining off another Bise assist.
“We know once we score, our energy spikes. We’ve always been that way,” Atkinson said. “It’s hard to come back against us because we’ve only given up eight goals.”
Heavyweight: Bay had fives losses in the regular season, but has won eight straight.
“Bay is very good. They’ve got a girl in the middle who’s an animal,” Atkinson said. “They are a great team, but there are some things we can expose. We can play right with them.”
