In a complete swing of the pendulum, the Bradley Central soccer ladies went from a shutout victory last Thursday to being blanked Tuesday evening.

After a good 3-0 victory over Tyner, the Bearettes found themselves unable to get off a single shot in a 5-0 loss to a strong McMinn County squad in their District 5-AAA opener Tuesday at the BCHS pitch.

“For eight of the last 10 years, McMinn County has had one really dominant player and now it’s Taylor Van Waggoner, who had a hat trick against us,” Bradley head coach Chrissy McKinney stated. “She is very quick and very strong. Thank God she’s a senior this year (and won’t face BCHS again).”

“I’m proud of the way our back line and goalkeeper played but we broke down at midfield,” she assessed. “We were playing a new formation and we had some trouble adjusting to it.”

After falling behind 3-0 in the opening half, thanks to a pair of goals by Van Waggoner, the Bearettes kept the ball out of the net for 38 minutes of the second half, save for a free kick goal by the Lady Cherokee standout. McMinn tacked on the final goal in the last two minutes of the match.

In the victory over Tyner, it was Bradley who dented the nylon for three first-half goals.

Freshman Monse Rincon got the Bearettes on the board with an unassisted goal at the 25:25 mark, while sophomore Mikala Ard followed with a solo goal of her own 70 seconds later.

Sophomore Alexia Hubbard capped off the scoring a little later in the first half.

“Tyner had some big girls and really put the pressure on us, but we were able to keep the possession much of the game,” McKinney expressed. “They had a 6-foot-2 goal keeper who made a tremendous save on one of our shots.”

The Bearettes will return to the home pitch Thursday as Rhea County comes to town for a district match at 5:30 p.m.