Photo by Andrew Grimm Oak Glen’s Aubrey Stoica, left, and Weir’s Catherine Glodowski, right, content for the ball.

WEIRTON — Capitalizing on chances makes all the difference in soccer, and Thursday night’s match between the unbeaten girls squads from Weir High and Oak Glen was no exception.

The Red Riders had chance after chance throughout the match, several of the high quality variety in the second half, but could not solve the Golden Bears’ Alexus Greenlief or get the ball on target in key situations, while Oak Glen, despite having the fewer of the chances, buried the ones it got to take a 2-0 win at Jimmy Carey Stadium.

“This was an important win,” Oak Glen head coach Bill Watts said. “The OVAC seeding is coming up and (Weir) is in 4A with us now, so to win OVACs one of us is probably going to have to beat the other getting this win means they might have to come to us in OVACs.

“This is a big win for that reason.”

With Oak Glen (6-0-2) clinging to a 1-0 lead for most of the second half, Greenlief made seven of her 10 saves in the final 40 minutes, including a couple of dandies.

“She’s the best keeper in the state,” Watts said of Greenlief. “She should have been first team all-state last year. We have only given up four goals in eight games so far. We have really focused on defense this year.

“We are not giving up a ton of great shots, but when they do get through, Lex has been outstanding. She’s really come through for us this year in some big stops.”

For Weir High head coach Anthony Angelo, who’s team drops to 4-1-2, not being able to finish despite a plethora of opportunities was an all-too-familiar site.

“That’s what the problem has been, that’s been the problem has been for a couple years,” Angelo said. “The whole second half was played (in the attacking end), we had their goalie into double digits in saves. We got quality chances, we just have to put the ball in the net. They packed it in a little and made it a little difficult in the back, but we had openings.

“We have got to take advantage of our opportunities. They had three or four good opportunities and scored twice. That was the difference in the game. I thought it was a good game.”

After the sides traded chances through the early portion of the match to no avail, the Golden Bears broke through for the first time with a Carson Barr goal on a feed from Kami Ward in the 24th minute.

Greenlief then made a pair of big stops on the Riders’ Madeline Cramer, the first of which from point-blank range, to preserve the lead at the break.

From the start of the second half, Weir turned the pressure up, and came close to finding the back of the net, but just could not break through.

Greenlief stopped a free kick, made a pair of big stops on attempts by the Red Riders’ Jaidyn Kelly, stopped Olivia Baker on good looks twice and Baker had another good chance just miss.

Not much after that near miss, play took a rare rush the other way and Ward connected to make it 2-0 and all but seal the Golden Bear victory with under three minutes to play.

“Kami had a great finish at the end and a great pass to Carson on the first goal,” Watts said. “The second goal was very important because we were getting a little gassed there. It let us catch our breath and hang on.”