First-Half Flurry
Maple Grove Races Out To Three-Goal Lead, Wins 4-1
Every time that the Maple Grove girls soccer team gets on the bus to head to Charles A. Lawson Field, they expect to battle through 80 minutes of hard-fought play.
Unfortunately for host Southwestern, that was only the case through the second half of the afternoon Wednesday as Maple Grove (6-1, 4-1) gathered a daunting three-goal lead through the first half and used that margin to finish with a 4-1 victory.
The Trojans fell to 5-3 on the year overall and remain at 3-2 in Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Athletic Association West Division play after the non-league contest.
“It’s really important that you show them early you are going to give them a match because they can go and kind of do what they did today against us,” Trojans coach Derek Houser said. “They get up early and then once they feel that they are a very difficult team to bring back down to earth. We had a long talk at halftime because that was not the half that any of us expected or wanted. I challenged them that they had to come and play and step up.”
Houser’s message would not fall on deaf ears in the second period of the day, but through the first 40 minutes the Red Dragons were nearly perfect on their offensive chances.
Southwestern began the afternoon with a good look following a corner kick in the fifth minute of play as Ashley Lundmark won a jump ball and struck a header just over the crossbar.
Following promptly, Maple Grove responded to that chance with some excellent midfield passing.
Ten minutes after the opening whistle, Ana Pavlock struck a ball that sent Chloe Kibbe on a rush. The senior was able to shrug off a defensive challenge and capitalize on the chance with a finish to the far post.
After that goal broke the stalemate, things went from bad to worse for the hosts as Maple Grove was able to convert on a subsequent opportunity.
Fresh off her goal, Kibbe hit a crossing ball inside the 18-yard box from the outside wing that was pinballed off the hands of Southwestern goalkeeper Hanna Johnson. That open chance was banged home by a waiting Clare Crossley to make it 2-0.
While the Trojans defense has been one of the team’s stronger aspects in the first half of the season, Maple Grove had all the right answers in the first half.
“We worked on it, we knew how to attack it,” Maple Grove coach Mike Burr said of the Southwestern defense. “We did a nice job of converting our chances today. Against Frewsburg we missed some opportunities and I told the girls ‘your opportunities are much more limited when you play really good teams’ … and this is a really good team that we played today.”
Southwestern would do its best to counter the twin tallies with a rush by Emily Kimball, but Maple Grove goalkeeper Kasie Craig was able to pounce on that ball just in the nick of time for one of her nine saves on the day.
While Crossley’s first of the night came following an open rebound, the senior captain made a point of showing her finesse on her goal second of the night.
Picking off an excellent deep pass from Britta Johnson, Crossley was able to walk in on a waiting Johnson. Sensing a rush from the Southwestern goalkeeper, Crossley opted for a knee-high volley rather than a settled shot, chipping that ball just over the outstretched hands of Johnson for a 3-0 lead.
“It’s such a nice ball to her and she’s such a talented player,” Burr said of the shot. “She knew …’OK, I know where I need to knob the ball to’ and so she kind of flicked the ball to herself and then just converted. It was a special play. She’s a great player so we love having her on our team.”
Crossley would complete her hat trick early in the second half when Kibbe let fly with a shot in close, popping out a rebound that was buried once again.
Struggles now behind, in the closing half of the evening Southwestern’s offensive unit looked like a different group of players entirely.
Captain Kylie Brown came out firing for the Trojans, letting go a pair of well-struck balls in the first 10 minutes of play, one of which found the field-goal post just over the crossbar.
With 26 minutes left to play, Melissa DeVore rang a shot off the goal post for the Trojans, while it was Brown who finally broke open the shutout for the hosts.
As the clock showed 17:29 remaining, Brown carried in all on her own and struck a ball just inside the right post that could not be reached by Craig.
“The good part was I use a lot of players so I could give them some information,” Burr said. “I tried to keep us as fresh as we could. We had some injuries and things that we had to adapt to on the fly, but all the girls stepped up. Our bench played well. It was a much more frantic half. We didn’t really settle down.”
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