Photo by Seth Staskey Wheeling Park’s Merritt Delk, left, dribbles past Steubenville defender Sophia Riley (6) during Monday’s OVAC quarterfinal match.

WHEELING — Like most teams that take on Wheeling Park in girls soccer, Steubenville had a plan to take away dynamic junior Merritt Delk.

Some of the best laid plans, however, still aren’t always enough to get the job done.

That proved to be the case again Monday evening in an OVAC Class 5A soccer quarterfinal at chilly Wheeling Island Stadium where Wheeling Park blew open what was a 1-0 game at halftime and rolled to a 7-0 victory against Big Red (5-6).

“Give credit to Steubenville because they had us frustrated in the first half,” Park head coach Carrie Hanna said. “They were in a formation that was very, very difficult to break down, so we had to adjust on the fly. It wasn’t until at halftime when we had a chance to talk to the girls about what they were doing and how we could counter it.”

First and foremost, Big Red was marking Delk with basically two and sometimes three players trying to make sure she couldn’t get her powerful foot on the ball. She had some chances in the first half and actually found the back of the net on a direct kick after the Steubenville keeper left the box with the ball in her hands.

That first tally, though, didn’t come until there was 19:01 to go in the half.

“This is the first time I’ve encountered Park as a coach and the first half we were marking (Delk) because she’s a stellar player, but in the second half, I don’t know,” Steubenville head coach Annie Cutri said. “We had an injury to our starting goalie (on Sunday), so we had to bump up a girl from our junior varsity and I thought she did an outstanding job when you consider who we were playing and her first varsity start.”

Those aforementioned adjustments that Hanna was able to make at halftime paid dividends because the floodgates opened just 1:49 into the half and never closed.

“Everyone trusted each other and I thought we executed very well in the second 40,” Hanna said.

Delk rang up four more goals, including the final three of the contest before being lifted in the final 10 minutes.

“Merritt is one of the fiercest competitors I’ve seen play the women’s game,” Hanna said. “They weren’t giving her any time or space and they had a lot of players on her, so we adjusted in the second half to free her up and utilize her ability to score from the outside, too.”

With the defense swarming Delk, it gave other Patriots opportunities and they took advantage. Senior Adlie Abraham tallied the first goal of the second half off an assist from Lauren Gongola.

Exactly two minutes later, it was 3-0 after Delk tallied on an assist from junior Audrey Lantz.

Lantz found the back of the net herself less than four minutes later to make it 4-0. She tallied with the help of an assist by Abraham.

That set up the closing trio of goals by Delk. Of those, assists were provided by Lantz and Katelyn Smith.

Steubenville was never unable to muster any offense. Actually, Park keepers didn’t have to make a save and faced little stress.

“Park is definitely the level of a team we’d see if we were to make it past district in the (Ohio) playoffs,” Cutri said. “Obviously, it stinks to lose, but games like this can be beneficial. They can show us weaknesses. Games like this you have to look with the attitude of finding what we can do better.”

For Park, this marks the first time since 2019 that it’s been part of the OVAC Tournament. Because of the West Virginia COVID-19 map of 2020, the Patriots were forced out of the field and last year a scheduling quirk led to the Patriots being unable to take part.

“It’s been a couple of years, so I think the girls are really excited to be a part of the OVAC Tournament again and very hungry,” Hanna said.

By virtue of Marietta’s win against University in the other opening-round game, the Patriots will trek to top-seeded Morgantown on Wednesday for a 5 p.m. start.