Andover senior defender Kai Gillespie and her teammates did a solid job of limiting the touches Peltier, who has a state-leading 26 goals this season, had after her game-opening goal. Gillespie and her teammates also limited Peltier’s chances of generating offensive opportunities for her teammates.

"I reminded the defense to not let [Peltier] turn, to force her to keep facing her defense," Gillespie said. "We also tried to lay back and keep her in check instead of pressing her."

Cretin-Derham Hall coach Rosie Malone-Povolny said this was not the first time Peltier, who has committed to play collegiately at Notre Dame, has faced a defense geared to stop her.

"Often Paige is double- and triple-teamed," Malone-Povolny said. "When she's moving, it's harder for teams to do that. I don't think we had the movement we needed."

It helped that the Huskies, ranked No. 4 in the Class 2A state coaches' poll, tied the game less than a minute after Peltier's goal when Anna Breffle's cross set up Kennedy Sanders for a dangerous shot from distance that found the back of the net.

"That was huge for us to get that goal right away, because it put the game back at even," Griess said. "Offensively, we have a lot of different players who can score. For example, Kennedy is a holding midfielder, so that's her first goal this year. It shows that if we stay composed we have a lot of scoring options."

The game remained tied until midway through the second half, thanks in part to Raiders goalkeeper Olivia Kalla who had 19 saves.

"Kalla moves well, she gets to the right spaces, and she has good reach and good hands," Griess said. "She kept them in the game for a long time. We talked at halftime about not just launching shots, because she's going to save them. We had to take a moment to compose ourselves, then take shots that were lower and more dangerous."

Andover broke the tie with 23:53 left in the second half when Olivia Knoepfle took a shot that banged off the goalpost to the right of Kalla and angled into the net. Seven minutes later, Corynn Grabau scored off a nice feed from Maria Stocke, and a little over a minute later Grabau tallied another goal with an assist from Kelsey Kallio.

"We know the goals are coming," Griess said. "These girls know how to create chances; it's just a matter of putting them away."

Andover (10-1, 8-0) claimed its ninth straight victory, thanks largely to a defense led by Gillespie, a senior who has started for the Huskies for three seasons.

"She communicates and directs the defense really well," Griess said of Gillespie. "She's super-positive, and she's really smart. And she's really skilled: ideally I'd like to have her on the outside, so she could move forward, but we need her in the middle so she plays there."

The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for Cretin-Derham Hall (7-3, 4-1), a strong offensive team that’s scored nine goals in three different games this season.

"It was good to score four. But keeping them at one — and shutting them out after they scored — was very pleasing," Griess said.

Gillespie added: "We stayed really composed, and our communication was good. I thought we did well."