Girls Soccer: Dover tops New Phila with late penalty kick
The Dover girls soccer team defeated New Philadelphia 2-1 Saturday afternoon at Quaker Stadium.
Dover Coach James Kline provided this summary:
Final Score: Dover 2 – New Philadelphia 1
Location: Quaker Stadium
Date: Saturday, August 27th
Kickoff: 5:00 PM
Saturday morning started with a team breakfast and ended with a tough fought team win over rival New Philadelphia. This team led by eleven seniors needed to redeem themselves from last year’s matchups and their rocky performance this past Thursday. However, this wasn’t going to be a simple task due to the talent the Quakers have on their roster. It was obvious that we came to play when we were able to get our first goal 44 seconds into the game. Bridget McCrate played a dangerous corner kick in when Sophia Bielski won her matchup and redirected the ball past their keeper. The rest of the first half was back and forth with both teams having their own chances, but no other goals were scored.
Going into the second half, we knew New Phila wasn’t going to just give up and going into the game we knew we needed to shut down Lauryn Contini to have a chance to win this game. Emilyn Feller and Amaya Baumberger marked her all game and played great against her, but a player with her talent can change the game in seconds if given an inch. With about 15 minutes left in the half Lauryn got away from the defense and tied the game up 1 to 1 with a well placed shot. The last fifteen minutes were everything a coach could ask for from their players. The girls moved past the goal and put all of their effort into finding the go ahead goal. With that effort, Bridget McCrate earned a penalty kick after getting taken down on top of the box. The moment was unbelievably tense, but it was not too big for her. Bridget grabbed the ball immediately and placed it down. The New Philadelphia student section which was directly behind the goal she was shooting at. While waiting for the referee, the students were screaming her name, yelling, and doing everything you could think of to try to distract her. She didn’t flinch and scored the goal ahead with about 10 minutes left.
As you can imagine, the last ten minutes were very tense and back and forth. Both teams fought to the end, but we were able to hold on their attack to keep a 2 to 1 victory. Now, we have to focus on the rest of the season until we host the Quakers on October 15th which we know will be a fun and tough game.