Aberdeen Central controlled the pace on offense and controlled the scoreboard on defense Saturday morning at Brownell Activities Complex.

The Golden Eagles scored early, won nearly all of the 50-50 balls, and came away with a 4-1 victory over Brandon Valley in an Eastern South Dakota Conference girls’ soccer contest.

“We knew how they were going to play and as long as we kept on possession and went to those balls, we have to win the ball out of the air to win those 50-50 balls and win the second balls when we don’t do that,” said Central coach Merle Aske. “The girls did a really good job of just controlling the pace of the game and playing at our pace, and not slowing the pace down for them.”

The Eagles set the tone early when Deshani Peters took a feed from Maddy Witte and put the ball in the back of the net in the fourth minute of action.

“I don’t know if that was a shot or what,” Peters said of the feed, “but I saw it and I think she saw it too and I just ran under it.”

Peters was also involved in the second goal of the half when she spotted Lauren Joosten who put the Eagles up 2-0 in the 18th minute.

Peters then outraced the Brandon Valley goalie to a ball to score a goal in the second half as well.

“She’s willing to distribute when she has to, but being that point person is a lot of times we’re trying to distribute the ball to her for a shot,” Aske said of the senior standout. “When she sees the opening, she reads the game really well and gets the ball where it needs to go to get a good shot off.”

Meanwhile, the Lynx had a hard time generating much offense. They scored their only goal on a perfectly placed free kick in the 54th minute, but that was it on the day as Central’s defense prevented much action in front of the Eagles’ net.

“Our defense, we really just focus on communicating and making sure we know who is stepping when,” said Central captain Kira Stillman. “So that’s our big thing, communication and knowing when our line needs to stop. We work on that a lot in practice. Our defense, we’re pretty tight as a friend group, too, so we connect well that way.”

Stillman prevented a potential Brandon Valley scoring opportunity in the second half when she waited for the right moment to kick the ball off a Lynx player who was bolting down the sideline.

“You just kind of have to stay cool and know what you’re going to do,” Stillman said. “That’s the big thing, just knowing what you’re going to try and do, and hopefully it goes right.”

Gracie Lozenski added a final goal for Central in the 76th minute as the Eagles improved to 4-1 on the season.

“We’ve been working a lot at practice about getting it off our feet, finding people open, and I think that really helped us today,” Peters said of the offensive strategy, “especially, because we were actually seeing where we can pass and we were actually executing it today.”

Central, which hosts Sioux Falls Roosevelt at 6 p.m. Tuesday, has now won four in a row after dropping its season opener.

Peters said the team is starting to come together and hit its stride.

“I think because our seniors last year played a big role on our varsity team and we had to learn to play with the younger girls, I feel like after practicing for so long we finally got our connection down,” Peters said.

Brandon Valley (1-6) 0 1 – 1

Aberdeen Central (4-1) 2 2 – 4

First Half: 1, AC, Deshani Peters (Abby Witte), 4th minute; 2, AC, Lauren Joosten (Peters and Kylie Stewart), 18th minute.

Second Half: 3, AC, Peters (Kira Stillman), 49th minute; 4, BV, Chloe Erickson (free kick), 54th minute; 5, AC, Gracie Lozenski, 76th minute.

Shots: Brandon Valley 16, 6 on goal; Aberdeen Central 28, 14 on goal.

Goalies: Brandon Valley, Hailee Bethke (10 saves); Aberdeen Central, Ciara Frank (5 saves).