Photo by Cody Nespor A shot by Charleston Catholic’s Claire Mullen slips under the arm of Wheeling Park goalie Ryleigh Hicks (28) for the first goal of the game Friday.

WHEELING — The Wheeling Park girls soccer season started on a sour note Friday afternoon as the Patriots never quite seemed to find their footing in a 2-0 loss to visiting Charleston Catholic inside Wheeling Island Stadium.

The Irish (1-0) controlled possession throughout the entire game, severely limiting the chances Park (0-1) was able to generate on offense.

“They did against us what I wanted us to do against them, which was control the tempo and possession,” Park coach Carrie Hanna said. “I think we got too much on the defensive and then we got caught not transitioning when we won the ball. We were too worried about them rather than opening up and finding our options and controlling the ball.”

Part of the reason for Catholic’s defensive success was the attention the Irish paid to Park striker Merritt Delk. Delk, a junior who set a new single-season school record with 43 goals last year, was constantly double-teamed by Irish defenders and was rarely afforded a free touch on the ball.

“Everybody’s always going to pay attention (to Delk),” Hanna said. “The word is out, there’s no big secret there. She’s going to draw a lot of attention and we just need to do better with how we free her up and how we free others up in light of what other teams are trying to do.”

The game stayed scoreless for the first 30 minutes until Catholic’s Claire Mullen scored on a breakaway assisted by Molly Messer.

The Patriots kept it at a one-goal deficit until Mia Lough scored with 8:08 remaining on a long strike from the right side to make it 2-0.

Hanna said the Patriots struggled to flip momentum to their side at any point during the contest.

“You’re counting on players to sort it out and we graduated a lot of seniors,” Hanna said. “There are a lot of new players out there starting and so it’s just them finding that chemistry, finding that connection and growing up in a hurry.”

Park goalie Ryleigh Hicks turned away nine of 11 shots on goal, including a dazzling save where she dove to her left with under three minutes to play and another shortly after where she punched a high shot up and over the net.

Hanna said a tough match against Charleston Catholic was exactly what she was hoping for to open the season.

“We always open up with some of the strongest teams that we can find,” she said. “We want to be tested, we want to see where we are and what we need to do in order to improve throughout the season.”

Wheeling Park is back in action today as the Patriots will travel for a match at Hurricane.