“I was super happy with her game,” Linsly head coach Morgan Kost said of Yendell. “I think as a freshman, you know, it can be a little bit nerve-wracking coming in and having to start where you expect a lot from her. But she has performed under pressure super well, and I’m really happy with her performance today.”

The speedy first-year equalized in the ninth minute for her first goal, an unassisted score where she wiggled her way between two defenders to center up a short shot, to tie the game 1-1 after St. Clairsville’s Elizabeth Morgan scored off a feed from Emma Gasber in the 7th minute.

Then, with the score tied 2-2 at the half, it was Yendell who unknotted things in the 54th minute, racing her way behind the Red Devil defense, as she did constantly Tuesday, and finishing in-close.

“[Linsly] played really well,” St. Clairsville head coach Wes Stoner said. “They have a ton of speed that ended up making us pay.”

The scoring was rapid in the game’s early minutes, with four goals in the first 12 minutes of play. After Morgan and Yendell exchanged scores, Linsly took a 2-1 lead in the 11th minute after senior Claire Carson managed to intercept a pass in St. C. territory and launch a 15-yard shot that arced perfectly to barely float over the outstretched hand of Red Devil keeper Kiya Kyer and sneak through the upper corner of the goal posts.

Less than a minute later, Elizabeth Morgan put another goal through, this one off of a terrific crosser from Gasber.

In the second half, the game shifted to a race to find one more goal– a race that Linsly’s freshman speedster won.

“I think we started off really strong,” Kost said. “We are kind of tired, we’ve played a lot of games, we had a game yesterday, but I’m super proud of the effort. Every single person that stepped on that field gave it their all, and that was probably one of the best games we’ve played so far.

“We played pretty well in the first half,” Stoner said. “I felt like we were missing everything in the second half. We stopped our game, unfortunately missing a couple girls that are injured, but that’s not the excuse. […] We missed a lot of chances just moving the ball forward with bad passes. The biggest thing I saw was just a lack of concentration, making good passes and moving the ball forward.

St. Clairsville is without last year’s leading scorer, Ashlynn Lednik, for the season, and senior Kendall Sall also sat out of Tuesday’s contest.

Linsly is now primed for a rivalry match at home against Wheeling Central on Thursday. St. Clairsville will try to rebound at home against East Liverpool on Thursday.