RICHMOND — An oddly frustrating season continued Monday for the Richmond girls’ soccer team, which is surprisingly still seeking an identity despite sitting as the No. 2 team in Class D South.
A scoreless tie with Class C Old Orchard Beach, in which the Bobcats carried the play the entire game, might have been the right step forward.
Richmond (5-3-2) held Old Orchard (5-2-2) to one shot on target – which came well before halftime – and had the best chances to produce what would have been a winning goal in the final five minutes of regulation or overtime.
But Richmond put just four of its 17 shots on target.
“We’re still searching,” said Coach Troy Kendrick, whose team lost 2-0 at Old Orchard earlier this season.
“I was pleased with this effort. I thought we outpossessed them, outshot them, outplayed them for 90 minutes. We just need some finishing. I don’t think we’ve ever struggled so much to finish.”
“We created plenty of opportunities,” said Destiny Anair of the Bobcats. “There was obviously a bunch of crosses that we could have been on the end of. That happens a lot during our games. It’s probably one of our weaknesses. It’s really something we need to work on. … We struggle with finishing a lot. It’s a pretty common theme at this point.”
Caitlin Kendrick had a good crack at goal in the 72nd minute that was stopped by goalkeeper Kaitlin Cote (four saves), and in the 78th minute Kendrick beat her defender off the dribble to the left side of the box and floated a bid to the far post that eluded two teammates.
In overtime, the only chance for either side came in the 85th minute.
Kendrick again was in the middle of it, dribbling through three opponents, beating the goalkeeper to the end line and centering for Abby Johnson at the back bar. But Johnson couldn’t get a touch on it.
“What we were doing hadn’t been working scoring-wise,” Caitlin Kendrick said, “so I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to take them on and see what they can do.’ ”
Not long after Payje Leclerc’s corner kick for Old Orchard dropped neatly in the six-yard box and was cleared off the line by Marybeth Sloat of Richmond in the 69th minute, Seagulls Coach Heath Floyd began to adjust his expectations.
“They outworked us, to be honest, for most of the game,” Floyd said. “I’m happy with the tie. It’s much better than losing, especially in overtime. We kind of played the bend-but-don’t-break game today. We bent a lot but we found a way to keep it out of the back of the net. The way things went, I was pretty happy with the tie.”
By the end of the second half, both teams were using as many as six players behind the ball.
Richmond was in a 5-3-2 formation throughout, while Old Orchard dropped out of its traditional 4-4-2 to try to see out the tie.
“We were going to be conservative with it,” Troy Kendrick said. “I thought they really picked on us down there (in the first game) a little bit. It morphed into a 4-4-2 because we were pushing people forward,and it paid off. We were able to generate some offense off of that.”
Offense, but no goals.
For the Bobcats, the tie wasn’t the worst result. The Heal point reward for the draw should be significant.
“Especialy considering we lost to them early in the season, I’m happy with a tie,” Anair said. “I thought we played well.”
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