WARREN — The injury bug reared its ugly head Wednesday night for the Warren G. Harding Raiders girls soccer team.

All-in-all, four players were injured at some point at Mollenkopf Stadium as the Raiders fell 4-1 to the Austintown Fitch Falcons.

Forward/midfielder Madyson Brown went down at the 20:15 mark of the first half. She leads the Raiders with nine goals on the season. Just six minutes earlier, midfielder/striker Abbey Frazzini, who coach Kevin Brown described as someone who plays everywhere on the field, walked off with an injury as well.

Those injuries hurt what the Raiders (1-3) did offensively throughout the first half, as a lot of the action took place on their end of the field.

“They were winning the 50/50 balls,” Brown said. “They were. I think we held our own possession-wise. They were beating us to a lot of the spots on the field The first half was great. We thought our energy in the second half was good. We just had some unfortunate injuries.”

Goalie Makayla Diggs was huge for the Raiders in the first half with six saves as the teams played to a scoreless first half.

“It was tough going into halftime,” Fitch coach William Spencer said. “I commend them for keeping it a tight game even though the ball was on their end for a good part of the time. Hats off to them.

“As soon as you get that first goal a lot of times that just opens it up. Typically a lot of times, we play for the second half.”

The first goal came rather quickly as Sydney Spencer got the ball out in the open and scored at the 38:09 mark of the second half.

“They got that quick one in the second half,” Brown said. “After that, sometimes when our girls get a goal scored on them, they look to the ground and get down on themselves. For the most part, I think they stuck it out.”

Less than five minutes later, Bailey Fritz scored the first of her game-high two goals to put the Falcons (4-0-2) up 2-0. Abby Knight’s goal at the 30:31 mark made it 3-0.

The Raiders ended the shutout when Brown scored on a penalty kick with 22:04 left to play.

They gotno closer as the Falcons continued to control the tempo of the game limiting the Raiders to just three shots on goal in the second half and just four for the game.

“We’re well-conditioned,” Spencer said. “I think we really kept up the pace. Typically, and you saw it in the second half too, we play strong in the second half, for 80 minutes. We don’t tire much. We don’t do a lot of subbing which is why we’re still playing strong at the end of the game.”