Beavers' birthday bash
By BRIAN WOODSONBluefield Daily Telegraph
EAST RIVER — Purple power was no match for the birthday girl.
Madison Hayes celebrated her 17th birthday, not only by scoring two goals, but by doing it in a 3-1 win by Bluefield over James Monroe in a girls soccer game on Wednesday night at East River Soccer Complex.
“We played really good,” said Hayes, a junior at Bluefield. “This is the first time we have beat James Monroe in five years so we’re pretty glad.”
Beating the Mavericks has always been a goal of the Beavers (3-2) and it finally happened in a game that was delayed 15 minutes by the late arrival of the officials.
“They’re organized, they’re very well-coached and they’re athletic so everything had to happen well for us,” Bluefield coach Gerry Enigk said. “This is kind of a benchmark win for our program, which is the way most of these girls are looking at it.”
Hayes scored once in each half, giving the Beavers 1-0 and 3-1 leads. The second goal, which gave Bluefield a 2-0 first half lead was by freshman Stacey Rogers, who also assisted on one of Hayes’ goals.
“The first one was a good cross that couldn’t have happened without Stacy Rogers, and the second one couldn’t have happened without Jennie Stultz,” said Rogers, who kicked the first one with her left foot and the second with the right.
“She’s got the goal-scorer’s mentality,” added Enigk. “She’s always expecting the ball to come to her and she was in the right place at the right time both times.”
James Monroe’s lone goal came on a Jessie Hensley shot that caromed off the hands of Bluefield goalkeeper Heather Cochran in the first half. The Mavericks (0-3), which lost nine players to graduation after last season, are rebuilding with an eye toward sectionals.
“We’re usually pretty good, but we’ll be ready come sectionals’ time,” Mavericks coach Paul Lovett said. “That’s what we’re building towards and working towards so this is a learning process. We’re taking a few lumps, but we’ll be all right.”
The Bluefield goalkeepers also took some lumps. Cochran had to leave in the second half after being struck in the face by a ball.
“It’s never been that physical before,” Cochran said. “There for a minute I kind of blacked out a little bit, but it was just for like two seconds.”
She left, but returned and finished the game when backup goalkeeper Caitlin Flanagan was also injured when hitting the ground face-first while diving for a loose ball.
“It was a courageous effort by both of those girls,” said Enigk, whose third goalkeeper is out a week with an injury. “They were in the right place when we needed them to be there.”
Both teams had more scoring chances, but Mavericks simply missed a few point-blank shots, while James Monroe keeper Brooke Hobson also made several nice saves to keep her team close.
“I think we did pretty well, we did a lot of what we wanted to do,” Enigk said. “We like to carry the ball down the sideline and cross and that’s our game and it was working for us tonight.”
Lovett switched his formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 in this game, and was pleased with what he saw. He just wishes a few of those shots could have been hit toward the net instead of wide left, right or over.
“We moved the ball and controlled it pretty well, and did well on defense,” Lovett said. “There were just a few little lapses here and there.
“I think they played well and aggressive and had some fun tonight and I got everybody in. We had the opportunities, but we kicked it wide or over. You’ve got to put it at the goal to score. It just wasn’t our night.”
While James Monroe will try to get on the winning side Saturday at Nicholas County, Bluefield will travel to Sissonville today, satisfied with a job well done.
“They’re just always good, a lot of speed and they always have really good players,” Hayes said. “We’re pretty proud to beat them, that’s good for us.
“We just want a winning season this year, and just do the best we can.”
—Contact Brian Woodson
at bwoodson@bdtonline.com
photo by John Nelson/
No comments:
Post a Comment