SMC Women's Soccer Gets Second Conference Win
When it comes to handles, smooth passing, and unselfish play in the Beautiful Game, the end result is almost always a befuddled keeper and your teammates arms around you. As the saying goes, teamwork makes the dream work.
Such was the result for Women's Soccer as the Corsairs defeat Glendale in a 2-0 shutout. After a tough loss to LA Valley the Corsairs bounce back with a big win giving their season a standing of 7-8-2 and an even more critical a conference win.
The game started off lacking pace and intensity. After no opportunity connected for either side, it seemed like both teams were confused and there was a serious lack of communication and facilitation. The Corsairs needed to find a leader in order to gain some momentum.
After a substitution was made, the Corsairs came back onto the field looking hungry to break this game open. The offensive started to fire on all cylinders and the Corsairs were aggressively pushing the ball up the pitch and making the Glendale defense struggle to match their pace.
The Corsairs kept up this assault for a solid eight minutes, all the while Glendale did not even get close to the Corsairs goal.
As a play started to develop, Marisa Moore (M) began to sprint down the field and was able to get a nice pass to a cutting Hadja Doucoure (F). Doucoure passed the ball right back to Moore and Moore was able to fire her shot off and find the back of the net to mark the first goal for the Corsairs.
“All we needed was an energy boost and things started to click," Moore said. “Hadja was able to give me the great assist and from there on I was easily able to score.”
“We were fighting hard but it wasn’t enough to get anything on the board," Doucoure said. “I had to start motivating my teammates to make sure we get this win.
The Corsairs ended the half with 1 goal and came off the pitch confident that they would get the W.
As the final 45 minutes started, Glendale came out ferocious and mounted many plays inside the box. They were thirsty to score, but the Corsairs' keeper was able to deflect away three shots on goal.
The Corsairs clearly were in total command of the game and with a little less than 2 minutes left on the clock, forward Chrystal Dorado was able to score an easy goal by driving into the box and finishing in front of the net and putting the final nail in this game.The Corsairs relished in this victory as their second conference game win of the year.
It seemed much of this win seemed to be contributed to the Corsairs' depth off of the bench as Glendale clearly was fatigued and in need of a substitution but failed to make the call.
"Because we are deep it is good for us to rotate players and rest the starters so they come out stronger," coach Benditson said. “It was something that helped us but was a loss for Glendale.”
The Corsairs take to the road to play LA Pierce College on Friday, October 28th at 4pm.