Girls Varsity Soccer vs St. Bonaventure

January 17, 2020

Wow. What a team win.  After Tuesday’s loss, the girls varsity soccer team responded beautifully in the game on Thursday after hard work during Wednesday’s training session.  It’s a wonderful marker of progression to see a group adapt their game so quickly to increased pressure and physicality.  In this tight match, our team never stopped learning how to work around an impressive St. Bonaventure midfield.  As a result of great decisions about when to apply high pressure, and when to contain, the Cate defense and midfield generated counterattack after counterattack.  Our offense responded with pure speed.  Goal scorers were always supported by crashing runs on the net and in the second half, we rarely missed an opportunity while the defense battled again and again and again to keep the ball out of our own goal.

We went into the half tied nil – nil, but not after some frightening possession changes in our box and some missed opportunities up top.  Junior Taylor Kane made several astonishing saves and St. Bonaventure was unable to convert their chances.  During halftime, our team tightened up their defensive strategy and the only goal against was a PK for an unlucky foul inside the eighteen.  In addition to Taylor’s valuable work, we are so grateful for our defenders freshman Tamsyn Taptich, seniors Lea De Vylder and Kim Rogers, and the indefatigable sophomore Olivia Dorion who marked one of the fastest forwards we’ve seen all year.  Cate’s first goal came ten minutes into the second half when junior Lilly Riehl broke forward with the ball at her feet and took a hard shot as she crossed into the offensive third.  The ball ricocheted off the retreating defender and senior Grace Blankenhorn was able to crash through and put it away with accuracy.  After St. Bonaventure tied the game with their PK, the score remained 1-1 and as light faded and rain set in, it looked as though we were headed for overtime. Adrenaline surged with every St. Bonaventure possession.  The midfield hunkered into a defensive position.  But counterattacks remained our strength and soon Blankenhorn was able to control the ball and play it through onto Riehl’s run. Lilly is just so fast and she smashed the ball into the back of the net with no time left on the scoreboard and 3 minutes left on the referee’s clock. We thought life couldn’t get much better, but then the team was able to generate another attack out of the midfield, this one from Riehl to junior Jolea Moes up the right side, who’s shot from outside the right edge of the area was a big, magnificent, Carly-Lloyd-esque arc that the keeper never could have saved.  Suddenly we were up 3 -1 with seconds remaining and Cate was able to maintain possession to end the game. What a happy result born of so much effort, particularly from our midfielders — seniors Neema Mugofwa and Blankenhorn, freshman Emie Nam, junior Tali Nam, and sophomores Francesca Castellarin, Rachel Ma and Charlotte Weis. They spent their game running to support defensively and bursting forward to create attacks.

Our next game is at night, away against Foothill Tech, who currently sit at the top of the table. We hope to see you in Ventura and thank you for the support this week!

Goals: Grace Blankenhorn (50 min), Lilly Riehl (77 min), Jolea Moes (79 min)

Assists: Lilly Riehl (2), Grace Blankenhorn

Saves: Taylor Kane (10)

Record: 5 – 3 – 1