Girls Soccer: Royals run away from Warriors

Rogers 7, Brainerd 2

The key: Miranda Anderson scored four goals for the Royals

Overall: Brd 0-1-0

Next: Brainerd at Sartell 5 p.m. Tuesday.

For about a half, the Brainerd Warriors stayed with the Rogers Royals in the first girls sporting event on the new artificial turf Friday at Adamson Field.

Then the game got away from Brainerd as the Royals scored six of the last seven goals for a 7-2 victory over the Warriors.

Miranda Anderson scored four goals for Rogers, which outshot the Warriors 17-6.

"The first half was definitely better than the second," Warriors coach Grant Gmeinder said. "We did some nice things in the second. We did some nice things in the first half, we moved the ball, we were able to advance it a little bit, but I think they just outplayed us. I think they were probably more prepared for this game than we were."

Gmeinder joked that he was happy to play on turf for "about the first 15 minutes when it was still 1-1.

"I thought it was good," he added. "It was cool to see the way they could move the ball around at times. You saw glimpses of it and moments of it, and how this field will lend itself to the way we liked to play. We're just not playing that way yet. Hopefully we can get that fixed soon and be ready for Tuesday."

Warriors senior midfielder Emily Foster also enjoyed her first game on Brainerd's turf.

"I liked playing on it," she said. "It just wasn't that good of a game for us. I feel like our heads weren't all there all the way and we weren't focused totally."

Rogers' Jenna Breseman scored first at 9:10 when she popped the ball over Warriors' keeper Megan Tschida.

Angela Lacy tied it for Brainerd at 17:23 during a scrum in front of Royals' keeper Lydia Hubert-Peterson.

Then Kate Heimer and Heather Kilber scored within eight minutes of each other and it was 3-1 Rogers at the half.

Ally Smith pulled the Warriors within 4-2 with a left-footed bullet from the 18-yard box at 70:33.

But Anderson scored three times in the final six minutes, once on a penalty kick.

"The mistakes we made I think they're easy to fix in a lot of ways," Gmeinder said. "A lot of it was simple things, missing a marking, poor clearance of a ball, things like that.

"They're a good team. They will finish in the top half of our section no doubt. Hopefully we get a chance to see them again at the end of the season, but I don't think they were five goals better than us."

Rogers 3 4 - 7

Brainerd 1 1 - 2

First half: R-Jenna Breseman 9:10; Brd-Angela Lacy 17:23; R-Kate Heimer 25:05; R-Heather Kilber (Courtney Henderson)

Second half: R-Miranda Anderson (own goal) 49:49; Brd-Ally Smith 70:33; R-Anderson 74:09; R-Anderson 77:46; R-Anderson 79:06

Shots on goal: R 17, B 6

Goalkeepers: R-Lydia Hubert-Peterson (4 saves); B-Megan Tschida (10 saves), Angela Lacy (0 saves last 54 seconds