The game featured two unbeaten teams – 3-0-1 Sanford and 4-0 Cheverus – and it became a game of two halves. The Spartans earned their first penalty corner five minutes in and received two more during the first 30 minutes. Sanford had shots get kicked away and others rolled wide of the goal.
The Stags, who scored 10 goals combined in their last two games – including a 3-2 victory over Thornton Academy – couldn’t generate any offense in the first half. Cheverus was awarded its only corner of the first half with 10:30 left in the period and mustered its only shot with three minutes left – which was kicked away by Sanford goalie Amber Singleton.
“We talked about that we needed to be a little bit more intense. We weren’t stepping to the ball and they were beating us to every 50- 50 ball,” Cheverus head coach Amy Ashley said of her team’s halftime talk. “We just stressed – pretty hard – that we’ve got to beat them to every ball, and then get some energy. And I think in the second half we played a lot better.”
What the Stags lacked for scoring opportunities in the first half, they made up for in a big way in the second. Their first penalty corner came 3:30 in, and it started a string of four straight corners, none of which was successful.
“As soon as we started to get corners I knew something was going to happen,” said Ashley.
The teams traded off two close calls each, sandwiched around a Cheverus timeout just under 10 minutes in. The last of the chances came from the Stags, but it was kicked away by Singleton. The Spartans couldn’t clear the ball out of the circle, however, and Cheverus drew its fifth penalty corner of the half.
The Stags didn’t let it go to waste. Hannah Abbott’s insertion from the left of the goal went outside to Sophia Pompeo, whose hit was re-directed near the left post by Colleen Slattery.
“The goal that they got, that’s a picture perfect deflection. That was beautiful,” said Walker. “That’s what you like to practice, time and time, and you hope that they’re going to be able to execute it in a game.”
“It was a bang-bang play,” said Ashley. “I think we got confidence throughout the other ones. We had good opportunities, good shots. We had the pressure on them.”
Sanford had its own chance on a corner a minute later, but couldn’t get a shot out of the sequence. The Spartans later had a turn-around shot by Liz Helmreich that went wide, but otherwise failed to come up with an answer for Slattery’s game-winner.
“Sanford’s a great team. And they’re very, very strong. They got behind our goalie a couple times, and we were able to have a defender there,” said Ashley. “In the second half, we just marked harder all over the field.”
Singleton kept it a one-goal game with a couple late saves – one a glove save on a high shot by Pompeo, the other a kick save against Slattery.
“Amber I thought did great,” Walker said of Singleton. “She had some key saves. They were hitting high and low on her.”
Walker called a timeout with 3:42 left to try and regroup her team for an equalizer, but the Spartans couldn’t get more than a step inside the circle.
The Stags move to 5-0 with the victory, but Ashley cautioned that her team had the same start to last season before losing the rest of its games.
“We’ve played well, and there’s been some games that we’ve been lucky to squeak out that we haven’t played well,” said Ashley. “I don’t care about the record, I just want us playing well.”
Walker said Monday’s game was a good learning experience for her team, especially if the two teams see each other again.
“Oh definitely. We’ll see these guys again. No doubt.”
— Sports Staff Writer Wil Kramlich can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @WilTalkSports.
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