XENIA — The Xenia Buccaneers and Greeneview Rams girls soccer teams faced off in a defensive battle, Sept. 19 at Xenia’s Doug Adams Stadium. The Rams improved to 8-1 winning 3-0. The Buccaneers fell to 4-5 on the year.

The first half was a constant defensive battle with neither team giving up many opportunities. Both teams consistently shut down the opposing team’s offense.

“The girls did really well controlling the middle of the field,” Greeneview coach Shawn Brown said. “Erika Ramey did a great job of controlling the balls out of the air.”

Olivia Maxwell scored the only goal of the half for Greeneview, 14 minutes into the game. She collected the ball at the top of the penalty box and put the ball into the goal.

Greeneview had a few other opportunities in the first half. However, Xenia goalie Lauren Nipper stopped each of them. On back-to-back corner kicks Nipper made saves, including picking the ball out from a scramble right in front of the net.

For the second half of the game, Greeneview opened things up a little bit. There were more offensive opportunities and freshman Josie Faris scored 11 minutes into the second half.

“Her attack and fight was fun to watch,” Brown said. “She never gave up.”

Taylor Huffman received a red card with four minutes into the game. Faris scored again shortly after the penalty with 3:28 remaining to seal the game.

Nipper came up with multiple saves to keep the game close, however Xenia couldn’t get anything going offensively.

“We knew that if we could control the ball in the air, we could dominate in the middle defensively,” Brown said.

Xenia’s next game is at Greenville on Monday Sept. 25.

Greeneview’s next game is at home against Ohio Heritage Conference divisional foe, South Charleston Southeastern on Thursday Sept 21.