Aberdeen Central did something no other girls’ soccer team had done this season on Tuesday afternoon. The Golden Eagles shutout previously unbeaten Mitchell 1-0 in an Eastern South Dakota Conference matchup at Brownell Activities Complex.

Central was able to keep a team that had scored at least five goals on six different occasions off the scoreboard thanks to its stellar defense.

“The biggest thing is we kept enough pressure on them that they didn’t get a lot of good opportunities,” said Central coach Merle Aske. “We knew they had a really good attacker, they got a really good player out there (Mia Mullenmeister), and she’s going to put the ball on frame a lot of times. Ciara (Frank) was up to the task. She made several saves on those.”

Central got the only goal of the game on a bizarre scenario, in which the ball never even hit the back of the net in the third minute of action.

Senior Lauren Joosten was just trying to cross the ball when it deflected off the Mitchell goalie, who turned and quickly picked it up. However, the ball had already inched across the goal line and moments later was ruled a goal.

“It was very unexpected, because I was just trying to cross it and I didn’t even expect it to go in,” Joosten said. “And then I looked, and the goalie hit it and I’m like what just happened? I was surprised it even went it, because I was just trying to cross the ball, I wasn’t actually trying to score it.”

The Golden Eagles made that goal stand up for the remaining 77 minutes with a strong defensive effort that prevented the potent Kernels offense from generating much of an attack. That meant a special focus on Muellenmeister.

“We just denied her a lot of opportunities. When she was on the ball it was next person in,” Aske said. “We just kept a lot of pressure on her and tried to wear her down a little bit, keep her on her heels so that she didn’t get that clean look.”

The Eagles have been forced to play without defensive captain Kirra Stillman who suffered a season-ending knee injury a few weeks ago. Sophomore Kaylee Donat has filled in admirably and the Central defense continues to thrive.

“We lost a really valuable player in the back line,” said senior defender Madison Hochstetter, “but we had a sophomore step up and it took her a second to get back into it, but I think we finally know how she likes to play, and we’re working together now back in the back line to get everything back to how it used to be.”

Central used its speed and athleticism on both offense and defense on Tuesday. The Eagles won the majority of 50-50 balls to be able to outshoot Mitchell by an 29-17 margin.

“We talked about that as it gets closer and closer to the playoffs. We have to win those balls,” Aske said. “If we don’t win the first ball, we have to win the second ball. We have to keep the pressure on them.”

The Eagles also used that speed to prevent Mitchell from getting behind their defense and gaining high-percentage scoring opportunities.

“We have a lot speed in our back line,” Hochstetter said. “Bailey (DeGroot) takes a lot of headers back there and won’t let it get behind her, and then if it does get past us, we have our goalie there to sweep it up right away, because she’s super fast, too.”

Frank came up with nine saves, including one in the closing minutes to preserve the win. She also used her speed to narrowly outrace a Mitchell attacker to the ball in the 50th minute to prevent what would have been a premium chance for the Kernels to score.

In the end, the Eagles were highly motivated to take down an undefeated foe.

“We wanted to win. We really needed to win this game,” Joosten said. “I felt like our effort was really good this game, and we really played as a team.”

The victory provided major seed points as the post-season gets underway next Tuesday. Before then Central (9-2) will host Pierre at 4 p.m. Thursday to close out the regular season.

Central honored its nine senior players following the match, which provided even more motivation in case there wasn’t enough already in place.

“It was an exciting win, Senior Night,” Hochstetter said. “We did not want to go down with a loss on Senior Night.”

Mitchell (12-1) 0 0 – 0

Aberdeen Central (9-2) 1 0 – 1

First Half: 1, AC, Lauren Joosten, 3^rd minute.

Second Half: No scoring.

Shots: Mitchell 17 (9 on goal); Aberdeen Central 29 (10 on goal).

Goalies: Mitchell, Tenley Peterson (9 saves); Aberdeen Central, Ciara Frank (9 saves).