Thrust into a difficult CIML and Class 3A schedule, the Bobcats have been held scoreless through three games and suffered their biggest defeat of the season Monday night, falling 7-0 to Waterloo United at home.

Marshalltown wasn’t able to practice between Friday’s loss to Newton and Monday night. With a young roster, coach Stacy Galema said the short time between games is a double-edged sword.

“It’s definitely hard because we can’t really adjust to the things we learn in each game,” Galema said. “Every game, every half is some learning opportunity for them, it’s something that they haven’t experienced before.”

Waterloo United took the lead in the opening six minutes of game action through Isabelle Stoffer. United scored two more goals within the first 15 minutes, putting the Bobcats in a position where they had a mountain to climb against a team full of confidence.

T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING

United added two more goals before the first half was over — leaving little in the way of intrigue for the second half.

In the second half, the Bobcats made multiple lineup changes in anticipation of freshman defender Sara Huffman missing Tuesday’s game against Cedar Falls due to a track meet taking place the same day. Huffman was moved to the left wing, where Galema said it was an experiment to see if the Bobcats could hold the ball up better offensively while the new backline got minutes together.

“If we can’t stop teams from scoring a bunch of goals, then it doesn’t matter what we do on the offensive end,” Galema said. “So that’s kind of been our focus coming into this game. We had to see how our back line [without Huffman] is going to be, that’s part of it, and then another is, how well can we hold the ball up the field if we pull one or two of our defenders further up.”

Waterloo added two more goals, and while the Bobcats threatened on a couple of occasions to score, no goal was forthcoming.

Anna McNally scored twice for Waterloo, as did Adalyn Westendorf. Milena Katjezovic and Katelyn Thomas had a goal each.

T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING

Marshalltown visits Cedar Falls at 7 p.m. Tuesday.