photo by: Nick Henthorn

Wheeling Park’s Hailey Hastings winds up for a kick around midfield on Saturday during the Patriots’ 3-0 win over Hurricane in their home opener. Hastings assisted on a Julia Dunaway goal during the game.

WHEELING — The Wheeling Park Patriots girls soccer team has had a busy first two days of their season.

“It was rough, you know, going down to Charleston Catholic last night, basically seven hours on the bus, and then come home and play two games within about 15 hours,” Wheeling Park head coach Tom Smith said. “But the girls did well today.”

For all the chaos from playing two games in a short span, the Patriots will certainly take the results. After winning their season opener vs. Charleston Catholic on Friday, 2-0, Wheeling Park pulled off another shutout on Saturday in their home opener, defeating Hurricane 3-0 in Wheeling Island Stadium.

“They responded much better today,” Smith said. “We were a little bit slow against Charleston Catholic. Today, we played at a better pace, played more of a team-oriented game, and I was very happy with the result.”

Wheeling Park’s goals came from Brooke Petticord, Julia Dunaway and Aria Swartz- though the Patriots would have needed only one goal thanks to their lock-down defense.

Hurricane attempted two shots on goal in the first ten minutes of Saturday’s game, but only found one more the rest of the game as Wheeling Park kept the visitors off-balance.

“Yeah, our defense has been playing really well this year, not only today, but also yesterday at Charleston Catholic,” Smith said. “And taking a little bit of heat off them was our midfield playing even better today with some ball possession, it took some heat off of them. I have a lot of defenders on the backside that can really close and their closing time is good and they work together very well.”

Wheeling Park had six shots on goal to Hurricane’s three, with senior keeper Riley Perry maintaining a clean sheet.

Petticord’s goal was the first of the game, a short shot that the sophomore managed to put by Hurricane’s charging keeper in the 28th minute.

Park’s second goal came shortly after the start of the second half, in the 49th minute, as Dunaway punched in a goal off of a crossing pass from Hailey Hastings.

Swartz capped things off with a straightaway goal in the 79th minute.

The Patriots will be afforded a few days off before hosting Marietta on Tuesday. Wheeling Park had a tightly contested match vs. the Tigers last year, where Park won 3-2.