Girls soccer: Five players score to send Dover to district semis
The Dover girls soccer seniors and their coaches. (courtesy of memories by lois)
DOVER – The Dover girls soccer team defeated New Philadelphia 5-0 in the opening match of the Division III district tournament on Monday.
Dover Coach James Kline provided this summary:
Monday night, we began our playoff play with a third matchup against our crosstown rivals. Anytime you have to play a team three times in one season it is going to be a difficult game. You know each other well and you have to start being more creative and execute well at all three levels. Last night, the girls did that. We weathered their push for the first 10 minutes well before taking control of the half.
Twenty minutes into the half, the goalkeeper bobbled a cross and the ball continued to bounce around in the box until Abigail Lane finished it. Getting that first goal allowed us to relax a little and continue scoring after that.
About six minutes later, Bridget McCrate played a beautiful cross that Ava Zobel volleyed out of the air to beat the keeper to her front past.
Seven minutes later, Abby Jones played a diagonal ball to Miley Patton who crushed a shot into the top netting of the goal for our third and final goal of the half.
Moving into the second half we just wanted to continue to play good soccer and to try and put the game away early. Cashlyn Harmon did that early when she hammered a shot from about 25 yards out to beat the keeper for our fourth goal. Early goals in the second half are great to cement a game. It eliminated any momentum they might have had coming out of their halftime adjustments and allowed us to continue our control of the game.
Then, with about 18 minutes left in the half Seri Blickensderfer got on the board with her first varsity goal after hitting a dangerous shot from about 30-yards out that the keeper was unable to handle. This goal ended the scoring and our defense along with Elizabeth Lane kept the shutdown. It was a great start to the playoffs and a nice way for our senior group to end their careers at their home field. Now our challenge is to stay sharp and focused as we prepare to take on John Glenn next Monday at 6:30 PM in the District Semi-Finals at a still to be determined location.
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Last Thursday, Dover hosted the Wooster Generals. They were a team that many could overlook with their record, but we knew they play in one of the hardest conferences in DII and their out of conference schedule is against some of the toughest schools in the state. What ensued in those 80 minutes was just an overall battle for a win to end each other’s regular season play. Unfortunately, for us, the Generals were able to find their way through our defense with seven minutes left in the game to put them up 1-0. Our defense played well and Elizabeth Lane had some massive saves (11 total for the game) to keep us in it, but we were unable to find any goals of our own in this game. The game ended, 1-0. This brought our regular season record to 8-8-1.