Marshalltown girls soccer’s defenses held for as long as possible on Tuesday night.

The walls came down just enough for Des Moines Roosevelt to land one final volley in a 3-2 win over the Bobcats at Leonard Cole Field.

Ziva Spellman fed Sabine Carlson with a short pass for a 20-yard strike from Carlson for the game winner with six minutes remaining, ending a relentless assault from the Roughriders, who outshot Marshalltown 31-3, unofficially.

“Luckily, our defense held strong for as long as they did,” MHS head coach Stacy Galema said. “We didn’t sub them very much, so it’s hard to stay focused and have to deal with that relentless attack over and over and over, and eventually they just found one to go.”

The score was tied 2-2 at halftime; Roosevelt dominated possession before finally ending a first-half stalemate with a Ziva Spellman long-range strike with 10 minutes remaining to halftime. The Roughriders tacked on another with a Sabine Carlson goal three minutes later and that looked like it’d be enough momentum to take Roosevelt the full 80 minutes.

The Bobcats got some hope just over 60 seconds later, though, as a Kenya Gomez Reyes pass found a streaking McKenna Coleman who burst past the Roosevelt defenders for her third goal of the season with just under six minutes left.

Coleman added her fourth goal of the season two minutes later as a Yuri Ramirez cross came in to Lilyia Christen, who pushed it to her left for a waiting Coleman to chip over the keeper and tie the game at 2-all.

“I thought it was good that we recognized quickly that we needed to respond,” Galema said. “That really helped to get that goal quickly and then the second one to get momentum in our direction going into halftime.”

The Bobcats played tough on their heels on Tuesday, but outside of Coleman’s two runouts weren’t able to sustain the same pressure the Roughriders were applying. Marshalltown was also coming off a 10-0 loss to 2A No. 13 ADM on Monday.

“The good part is that we played some really fast girls yesterday, so we had already talked about how we need to play when they’re playing fast,” Galema said. “We needed to force them to the outside so they’d make even more effort coming back in front of the goal and as I was telling the girls tonight, they were taking those shots from further out rather than inside the 18 or right at the six in years’ past.

“It’s almost unfortunate that we had halftime because we were playing really well at the end of the first half,” Galema said. “We came out strong in the second half, too, but those tired legs didn’t help us.”

While the Bobcats were denied what could’ve been a silver-lining tie after almost 70-75 minutes of playing defense, for Galema it’s a sign that MHS can answer that particular bell when it’s rung.

The Bobcats head to Des Moines Lincoln on Thursday.

“We were able to keep our focus out there for the most part and I think that builds our confidence as a team when we can sustain those things,” Galema said. “Lincoln will play a lot differently, more of a passing team, but I think we have plenty to build off of these last two days and hopefully we’ll have a good practice tomorrow to get our legs under us so we can move the ball a little more on the offensive end.”