MONMOUTH — The Monmouth Academy girls soccer team had its motto for the season — “Ignite” — splashed all around Chick Field for Saturday’s homecoming. The Mustangs put it into action early in their Mountain Valley Conference match with Lisbon, and remained on fire for much of the contest.

Sidney Wilson and Haley Fletcher each scored a pair of goals in a 5-0 win. Tia Day also scored for the Mustangs, who improved to 5-0-0.

Wilson and Day scored 27 seconds apart in the first half to light the fire. The Mustangs could have done even more damage if not for a couple of crossbars and some posts, plus the boldness of Lisbon (2-3-0) goalkeeper Alexandra Sult, who battled a wrist injury suffered early in the game while making 18 saves.

“We should have scored some more. We had a lot of opportunities,” Monmouth coach Gary Trafton said. “Even though we’ve been scoring a lot of goals, you never know. You’ve got to take your opportunities. The girls played well today. They passed the ball real well today.”

Wilson was credited with the first goal at 8:20 after her redirect on a Mustangs’ corner glanced off the head of a Lisbon player and into the net.

“My job is to stay back side,” Wilson said. “I just kind of read it and it came to me and I tried to hit the far corner. It ended up working out.”

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Day quickly added the insurance goal off a ground cross from Sammy Grandahl.

“Since their goalie is really good at getting to balls in the air and she’s so tall, we were working on crossing balls on the ground and that’s what happened that time,” Day said. “I ended up being open on the back side. We’d practiced just tapping it in. We wanted that goalie to have to dive instead of jumping in the air.”

“It’s really important (to build an early lead),” Wilson said. “In the past, we’ve had trouble getting going right off. That’s why this year our little saying has been ‘Ignite,’ to get the fire started early.”

The Mustangs had a chance to extend the lead when Fletcher’s bid hit the crossbar. A hustling Grandahl beat Sult to the rebound and found the back of the net but she was ruled offsides.

Moments later, another Mustangs shot hit the right post. Sult then made a nice leaping save to rob Fletcher again.

Most of Lisbon’s chances came in one bunch after a throw-in with a little over three minutes left. Monmouth goalie Mikayla Cameron (six saves) had to go to the ground for one stop, leaving the net wide open for a couple of rebound opportunities. But the Mustangs had a wall of bodies in front of the net to deflect those shots.

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“Monmouth does a great job defensively of clogging the middle of the field on any set play like that,” Lisbon coach Jake Gentle said. “That’s soccer. Sometimes you get it to go in, sometimes you don’t.”

Wilson and Maddie Bumann each hit a post in the first six minutes of the second half, but Wilson broke through off an assist from Hannah Anderson with 28:29 left to make it 3-0.

Fletcher finally was able to solve Sult and the goal frame with the final two goals, the first on a throw-in from Day, the second on a pretty soft-volley over a leaping Sult.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33


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