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Round Two for soccer’s Mid-County Madness happens tonight as District 21-5A continues the second half of district games.

The Nederland boys sit behind Dayton, who leads the district with 23 points, at second with 19. Cleveland occupies third with 17 points and PNG and Memorial are tied for fourth with 13. In girls standings, PNG and Nederland each have 24 points, but PNG has the head-to-head tiebreaker so far.

Due to weather forecasts for Tuesday evening, the varsity game for the boys will take place at 5 p.m. and junior varsity will play at 7 p.m. at Bulldog Stadium. The girls’ varsity game will kick off at 7 p.m. as previously scheduled at PNG.

Boys

The Indians (14-4-4, 4-3 in 21-5A) and the Bulldogs (9-7-3, 5-2) want to score more in this rematch. Nederland defeated PNG in a shootout, 4-2, on Feb. 7 after regulation and overtime ended scoreless.

PNG coach Chad Luttrull was glad the Indians were able to shut down the Bulldogs but wants to see more from the offensive side.

“We have to go out and we have to play good soccer,” Luttrell said. “Nederland has had a really good year this year, but we had a couple of opportunities to score goals in the last encounter. I’m sure [Nederland coach Keith Barrow] said the same thing. We just didn’t do it, we just didn’t execute. We did our part on defense shutting them out, but we just didn’t do our job offensively, so we’re going to have to over there and give them what we’ve got.”

Barrow did share Luttrull’s desire to see more effectiveness on offense.

“We need to take care of the opportunities,” Barrow said. “We’ve been doing a great job of creating those goal-scoring chances, and it’s going to come down to those moments.

“On the offensive side we’ve got to take care of our opportunities, maybe work for less shots but more scoreable ones.”

The Bulldogs’ own defense has held back district opponents as well, allowing only 10 goals, while Dayton and PNG are tied for the least allowed at 9. Maintaining possession is one of the Bulldogs’ specialties, Barrow said.

“We’re going to come out and try and do what we’ve been doing, play good possession and just go after them the best we can,” Barrow said. “I know their defense is very strong, but we’re right behind them. We like our chances but we know it’s going to be a fight.”

For Luttrull, the desire to keep playing is a major motivation for the Indians.

“I think that we’re fighting for our spot in the playoffs right now,” He said. “We’re running out of opportunities to make points to make a difference in the district, and we’ve left some points out there. It’s crunch time for us. We’re fighting to give those seniors on our team another game in the playoffs.”

Girls

PNG (15-6-1, 8-0 in 21-5A) defeated Nederland (15-3-2, 8-1), 2-0, in the last game on Feb. 7.

Nederland coach Aaron Tomplait said his young team will need to keep their nerves under wraps and play they way they know how to play.

“We knew that we were going to have to be physical in it, and as a young team we learned a lot from the game,” Tomplait said. “They realized that it is one of the biggest games that they’re going to play in their high school career. They have to be able to build into that moment and perform in that moment. There were a couple of times where we felt like we played below the moment.”

Aimee Bates, PNG head coach, said since the previous match the Indians have only gotten better and have learned how to move off the ball and make adjustments.

“We played with a lot of intensity, and we focused on our possession,” Bates said. “We were really good on set pieces, so we’re hopeful that those same kind of things come into play. I think that we’ve gotten even better since the last time we played them.”

Bates wants to see the Indians capitalize on more of their scoring opportunities this round as they continue to work on creating those opportunities.

“I hope that this next time we play those movements off the ball and create even more chances,” she said. “We finished two of our chances and we had 18 shots, so I’m hopeful we get that many opportunities again and that we can put even more back into the net.”

So long as his players execute and keeps their heads, Tomplait says the Bulldogs do best when they control possession.

“Sometimes in possession we go back to a little bit of run-and-shoot, and we just have to get back to going around defenders and trying to create the matches that we want,” he said. “When we do that we do it very well. We can get to the goal when we want to. We do that well most of the time. It’s just a matter of doing it most of the time.”