Dowling Catholic’s Meredith Schultz scored twice in the first 15 minutes of the second half to help the Class 3A No. 8 Maroons to a 5-0 victory over the Marshalltown girls’ soccer team on Thursday night at Leonard Cole Field.

The host Bobcats (0-13) kept Dowling off the board for the first 18 minutes of the match before Anna Recker broke through with the go-ahead goal. Julia Moore made it 2-0 at the 28-minute mark, but that’s all the Maroons (8-4) could manage against MHS in the first half.

“Proud of the girls for continuing to fight,” said Marshalltown head coach Stacy Galema. “Holding Dowling for 18 minutes without a goal was an awesome thing to see tonight. We have struggled with early goals. We allowed an early goal in the second half but kept our composure, kept our focus and worked tirelessly to win each battle and ball that we could.”

Schultz broke through one minute into the second half and again at the 55-minute mark to put the Maroons out of reach. Abby Coleman found the back of the net inside the final 10 minutes to close out the scoring.

“Yuli Ramirez filled in our defensive line tonight and for a freshman to play as she did in a game against a top-tier team like Dowling shows the promise she has for the future,” Galema said. “We were without two defenders from the beginning of the game and then went down another in the second half, so her quality minutes was a big difference maker.”

MHS freshman goalkeeper Claire Close made nine saves in net, but the Bobcat offense was blanked for the 10th time in 13 games this season.

Marshalltown is back in action at Leonard Cole Field tonight at 6 p.m. against Fort Dodge.