MONMOUTH — Through foresight or luck, the schedule-makers set the one girls soccer meeting between Madison and Monmouth for the next-to-last game of the regular season. For the moment, Madison has bragging rights and the No. 1 seed in Western C, while Monmouth has a lot of near-misses to reflect on.
Both teams entered the game with 11-0-1 record, but Madison scored the first two goals and held on for a 2-1 victory on Monday afternoon.
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“We knew we were going to have to play really hard,” said Madison freshman Jillian Holden, who assisted on what turned out to be the game-winning goal by Sydney LeBlanc. “We’ve been working really hard, and preparing for this game, and I think we came in ready.”
“They just beat us to the ball,” Monmouth coach Gary Trafton said. “You can’t control offense if you don’t have the ball, and they beat us to the ball more times than not.”
Monmouth outshot the Bulldogs 17-9, but many of those were shots that went wide or over the net, or long, soft kicks that were handled easily by Madison keeper Erin Whalen. Madison had its first good chance snuffed out when Monmouth keeper Mikayla Cameron made a diving save off a shot by Tori McLaughlin, but the Bulldogs went up 1-0 with 24:03 left in the half when Madeline Wood placed a long direct kick between Cameron and the crossbar.
The Mustangs had a great chance to tie it with 17:25 to go in the half, but Whalen made a left-hand bat save to knock away a header by Shannon Buzzell on a corner kick. So instead of a 1-1 game at the half, Madison went into the break with a 1-0 lead.
“I always tell the girls — they kind of chuckle at me — the next goal is huge,” Madison coach Mike Herrick said.
The Bulldogs pushed their lead to 2-0 less than four minutes into the second half, as Holden fed LeBlanc in the box for a header and the goal. Madison had the first five shots of the second half, but Monmouth turned it on after that.
“Good teams aren’t going to let you do what you normally do comfortably,” Herrick said. “We normally possess, and we move together comfortably. We weren’t able to do that, but that wasn’t because of us. That was because (Monmouth) did a great job. They didn’t give us a lot of time to do what we needed to do.”
Madison kept the Mustangs in check in part because of the defense of Monica Ouellette, who shadowed Haley Fletcher, and Madison Curtis, who clung to Sidney Wilson.
“Both did an outstanding job,” Herrick said. “Those type of players, you saw the very few mistakes my girls made on them — very few — all of a sudden, almost a goal. Those kind of players, it kind of reiterates why we have them on them in the first place.”
“This team wasn’t built on two girls,” Trafton said. “Our touches weren’t good. They forced a lot of balls on us that we didn’t handle very well. We didn’t play well — they wouldn’t let us play well. They outplayed us today.”
Fletcher and Wilson broke through their iron escorts late in the second half. Fletcher carried the ball down the left side before sending a pass to Wilson, who nailed one inside the left post to make it 2-1 with 10:34 to go.
About two minutes after Wilson’s goal, she nearly tied the score with a boot from the right corner. Whalen leaped and deflected the ball off the crossbar, and Madison’s Emily Oliver was there to kick the ball out of the box.
Monmouth’s Tia Day had a shot go just wide with less than seven minutes to play, and Monmouth ran out of time. While there were no cards given out, the game featured a good number of elbows and pushes.
“We’ve played some other physical teams, but towards the end, it got really physical,” Ouellette said. “But we were able to match that, and we can keep our composure through that.”
GIRLS SOCCER
HALL-DALE 2, MT. ABRAM 0: Lilly Ly and Eva Shepherd each scored a goal to lead the Bulldogs to the MVC win in Salem. Signe Lynch had an assist for Hall-Dale (8-4-0). Olivia Maynard stopped two shots in net.
Abby Brackley made six saves for Mt. Abram (5-7-1).
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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