Eisenhower’s Callan Gigliotti takes the ball away from a Girard player during Monday’s nonregion girls soccer game in Russell. Times Observer Photo by Steve Younger

RUSSELL — It was a tale of two halves for the Eisenhower Knights on Monday as they dropped a double-overtime thriller to the visiting Girard Yellow Jackets 4-3 in nonregion girls soccer.

The first half was a battle for field position as both teams moved the ball well. It was the Knights who struck first when freshman Clara Steinberg found the back of the net on a nice assist from teammate Katie Bunk at the 15-minute mark.

It was a very physical game as both teams pushed each other to gain control of the ball. The Knights struck again when senior Elley Eastman got a tap-in off of a shot on goal that hit the corner post that she was able to maneuver into the net to put the Knights up 2-0 at the 20-minute mark. That score would hold until the half.

It took just 1:30 for the Knights to move their lead up to 3-0 when sophomore Emily Grosch on an assist by Eastman.

That would be all the scoring for the Knights as the visitors took over.

The Yellow Jackets managed to keep the ball away from the Knights and got on the board when Anastasia Super found the back of the net to make the score 3-1.

It would take eight minutes for the visitors to knot the score as Girard’s Abby Erin scored her team’s second goal and teammate Madison Soudan would knot the score 3-3 with five minutes remaining in regulation time.

In the first overtime period both teams moved the ball into each other’s end of the field and both had opportunities but just missed getting it between the goalposts.

Girard scored the winning goal with 5:46 left in the second overtime period.

“That was a tough loss for us,” Eisenhower head coach Alex Johnson said, “but we have to learn from it and prepare for our game Wednesday against Northeast.”