Girls soccer: Dover tops New Philadelphia 9-1
NEW PHILADELPHIA – The Dover girls soccer team defeated New Philadelphia 9-1 Saturday at Woody Hayes Quaker Stadium. Ava Zobel had a hattrick for the Tornadoes.
Dover Coach James Kline provided this summary:
Saturday evening, the Dover Tornadoes traveled across the river to take on our rivals. We played well enough last year to take both games and we wanted to continue that success this year. We knew this game would be a challenge. There were a lot of added elements to this game. It was the first rivalry game of the season, we were playing at their place which meant we were playing on a very narrow pitch, and this would be our fourth game in seven days. The girls did a great job with handling all of those things and came out energized from the whistle. However, we struggled with the narrow field early in the game. Typically, we like to stretch the opposing team by usually the entire width of the field. However, this field didn’t allow us to do that since it uses the football field lines which took ten to fifteen yards away from each side of the field. The girls were able to work through the adjustment and you could see them beginning to settle in around the 10-minute mark.
Once we settled in the girls started to dominate possession and the game. After that happened, we were able to get on the board when Emilyn Feller made a nice pass to Ava Zobel, who took two touches to separate from her defender, and buried a shot past the goalkeeper. Four minutes later, Abigail Lane played a dangerous ball over the top for Ava Zobel to run onto and one-touch volley a shot over the keeper’s reach into the top netting for her second goal of the match. Again, four minutes later, Miley Patton played a nice ball across the top of the box that Taylor Vaughan dummied which led to Ava taking a touch to the outside creating space for a nice pass to her left where Emilyn Feller was there to one touch a shot that beat the keeper to her right. Before the game, we discussed focusing on the first goal and if we were able to get one earlier more would come. The girls played some really nice soccer and were rewarded for that with three goals in a matter of eight minutes. However, there were still 12 minutes left in the half and they weren’t done scoring. With six minutes left in the half, Cashlyn Harmon took a corner where she played a nice in-swinging ball to Abigail Lane who was all by herself on the back post to redirect the cross into the back of the net. Two minutes later, off another corner from Cashlyn Harmon, Taylor was able to settle a deflection and hit a shot that beat the keeper to her front post. Then, with six seconds left to go in the half, off another corner, Ava Zobel was able to take a clearance and put a well-placed shot over the keeper’s head into the side netting for her third goal of the game giving her a hat trick and putting us up six to zero.
When you can execute this well in a half, looking toward the second half is difficult. We want to continue to play our style, take this momentum, and prepare for our next game, but we also want to respect the game and our opponent. We knew this was a great opportunity to get other players on the field and rest some of our starters who have played 70+ minutes in each of our three previous games. With that being said, we started the second half similar to how we ended the first. We possessed the ball well and tried to switch the field to change our point of attack. About 11 minutes into the second half, Cashlyn intercepted a pass and made a quick pass to Emilyn who made a one-touch pass to Carley Noretto who took a touch around the goalkeeper and tracked the ball across the goal line. About six minutes later, Kenzie Wright got on the board by putting a nicely placed shot to the backside of the goal off a save from a corner kick. Eleven minutes left in the game is when we ended our scoring when Emilyn Feller crushed a deflected ball into the back of the net off a save from the keeper for our ninth and final goal of the game. The rivals ended up getting on the board as time expired when a free kick was deflected off a defender and into the net as time expired making the final score, 9-1.
It is always nice to get a win against a rival and as a coach, it’s great to watch the team execute so well. The team has worked extremely hard these past couple of weeks and this summer to get to this point of the season. However, they are not satisfied yet. They want to continue to show everyone that Dover belongs in the conversation with the top teams in DIII. The win brings our overall record to 3-1 with one more game to go before a little break over the holiday weekend. On Tuesday, we continue our travels as we travel to take on Philo with a kickoff at 5:00 PM.