Soccer: Dover girls win on Senior Night
The Dover girls soccer team beat Minerva 9-0 on Senior Night yesterday.
From Coach James Kline:
Last night, the Dover Tornadoes hosted the Minerva Lions for it’s Senior Night. It was a beautiful night for us to honor our large senior class of Addie Martin, Meghan McCrate, Sophia Bielski, Annie Wright, Addie Steed, Cassy Connare, Alyssa Feller, Olivia Noretto, Amaya Baumberger, Olivia VanDonge, and Bella Zobel. This is a very special group, on and off the field. This being my first year as the coach you could not ask for a better senior class. Their leadership has been crucial in changing the culture and playing style. I have said this many times already and will continue to do so, but I am also very disappointed that this will be my only year with this group. However, our plan is to make the most of it.
After all the senior recognition was over, it was time to turn our focus to the game. We came a little flat which is understandable with the change in our pre-game routine, but slowly the girls worked through it. Six minutes into the game we earned a penalty kick that Cassy Connare confidently put past the keeper for her first game of the year. The scoring slowed for a bit after that, but then we got back on track when Alyssa Feller made a nice pass to Carley Noretto who put a nice shot past the goalkeeper for our second goal. With about 10 minutes left, the Feller sisters connected for our third goal with a pass from Emilyn to Alyssa. Just before half, Emilyn Feller found the back of the net with an assist from Bella Zobel. Going into half 4-0, there wasn’t much to say to the girls other than to continue to play good soccer and not develop bad habits.
In the second half, we continued to work the ball inside and outside, getting our fifth goal six minutes into the half with Alyssa Feller finding her second goal of the game off a cross from Bridget McCrate. Four minutes later, Olivia VanDonge found the back of the net after beating two defenders. Shortly after Olivia’s goal, we played a ball into the box that got knocked around and knocked in by Minerva for an own goal. In the last 20 minutes, we wanted to try to knock the ball around which resulted in two more goals, one by Bella Zobel off a pass from Bridget McCrate (second assist of the game) and for her first hat-trick of the year Alyssa Feller scored in the 60th minute of the game.
Overall, it was a great night for the team, but more importantly the senior group. They’ve earned and deserve all the recognition they received last night. Now we have a little break until our next game against Massillon next Wednesday that we plan to rest some lingering injuries.