ROCHELLE — Playing three varsity soccer games in three days is a tough ask for any team, but the Lady Hubs gave it their all on Thursday as they attempted to protect their home field against the Princeton Tigers in nonconference competition.

After falling 7-0 at Geneseo on Tuesday and drawing Hinckley-Big Rock on the road Wednesday, Rochelle returned home to take on the Tigers, who jumped ahead early in the game and turned in a strong performance in the second half to beat the Lady Hubs by a score of 6-0.

“They did a very nice job of controlling the ball,” head coach Chris Blevins said after the game. “They had very nice long balls and good one-touch passing going on with good spacing. I told our girls that, no matter how fast you run, the ball’s going to go faster… Princeton just did a nice job of keeping possession of the ball and getting into our space.”

There was a lot of running around for the purple and white on Thursday, as the Tigers scored two goals in the first half and controlled the ball in the Rochelle zone for nearly the entire period. Having played two games in as many days prior to the contest, the Lady Hubs were simply unable to keep up with Princeton, who looked to be moving quicker to the ball and faster down the field.

“We just didn’t keep the pressure on like we should’ve, but it was a good learning experience for everyone,” Blevins said. “We were pretty tired coming off our game against Geneseo… I knew we had some injuries from [Wednesday’s] game and from the Geneseo game that would play in just a little bit. The girls are just tired coming off those two games and we’ve had two weeks now with three games in each week and we’re kind of beat up.”

One girl who helped the Lady Hubs keep the pace up on Thursday was sophomore Olivia Piloni, who transitioned from defense to midfield halfway through the game in order to give Rochelle a boost on the offensive end. Piloni, who has earned the role of a team captain, has impressed Blevins with her ability to handle the ball and move in space.

“We let Olivia move up to the middle the second half to be a forward stopper for us,” Blevins said. “We’ve allowed her to move up over the past couple of games to put some pressure on in the midfield area and to spark our offense and get the ball moving up front.”

Most of the pressure in the second half of Thursday’s game came from Princeton, who tacked on four more goals before nearly adding a fifth off a free kick before the official blew the whistle for an offside. Sophomore Holli Drew recorded 16 saves for Rochelle, her third consecutive game with 10 or more saves, but the Tigers proved to be just too much on offense.

The loss drops the Lady Hubs to 2-5-3 on the season, and they will battle Sterling in conference play on Tuesday, April 18 at Rochelle Township High School. The girls have scored just seven goals in their 10 games thus far, but Blevins is confident they will get healthy and turn things around next week.

“I asked our forwards to do one thing today and that was to try and remain side-on,” he said. “Gillian [Higby] and Alyssa [Cepeda] both did a nice job doing that. Gillian had a couple of nice runs up front, but it just didn’t pan out… As the game progressed we started playing a lot more of our subs who don’t get much playing time to give them some experience against a quality team.”