Without time to practice the game plan, it was hard for the Marshalltown girls’ soccer team to hold the line.

The Bobcat defense forced numerous offsides against Class 3A No. 13 Ames, but the Little Cyclones capitalized enough times to tally a 4-0 triumph over Marshalltown on another cold and windy Friday night at Leonard Cole Field.

The start of the match was delayed by lightning, but the Little Cyclones (3-0-1) came out without hesitation and scored three times against the wind in the first half. A final goal with 7 minutes, 15 seconds remaining in the game gave Ames its third consecutive shutout victory.

The Little Cyclones have allowed only one goal to this point in the season, and Marshalltown (3-3-0) managed only two shot attempts — neither on goal — as its three-game winning streak came to a close.

“It’s just really hard to find momentum when, obviously, we didn’t start on time, the weather, and then it dropped from 80 to 50 degrees in a matter of hours,” said MHS head coach Kameron Nehring. “So that kind of affected us, but we’re just trying to find the consistency of who we can play and where they can be consistent.”

A persistent attack from Ames came regardless of how far up the Marshalltown defense played. The Little Cyclones were whistled for playoff offside throughout the match, but when their timing was on, they were efficient in scoring goals.

Sara Bierbaum broke the ice in the eighth minute of the match, taking a cross from Allie Goodman and cashing it in past MHS goalkeeper Sophia Valdez Chavez for a 1-0 lead.

Five and a half minutes later, the Little Cyclones were at it again as Natalie Westort broke in all alone against Chavez after a perfect pass from Addy Leto and scored for the 2-0 advantage.

Just two minutes later, the Little Cyclones made it a three-goal game with Cecilia Fulton’s goal on another pass from Leto.

Goodman got a goal of her own in the 72nd minute, assisted by Westort, as Ames ran free in the offensive third once it connected past the Bobcat defense.

Chavez made 13 saves, unofficially, as the Little Cyclones outshot Marshalltown 23-2.

“They’re very fast,” Nehring said. “We’ve just got to come out the way we did in the second half and it would have been a different game for sure.”

Marshalltown’s best scoring chances came after free kicks into the box that the Bobcats were unable to connect with. MHS defender Frankie Long sent consecutive free kicks into the box in the 56th and 57th minutes, but the Bobcats came away with no shot attempts after the ball came down.

Fatima Ramirez Rosas placed another long kick into the box in the final minute of the match, but the Bobcats got beat to the ball even after Ames misplayed it.

“We got the ball up there, it was beautiful, we just had to do it every single time,” Nehring said. “We’ve done it multiple times, and it showed how we do it and how we do it in practice, it’s just doing it every single time.”

Marshalltown has another three-match week on the schedule ahead, starting with Monday’s trip to Colfax-Mingo.