Despite a very tough schedule, the JV girls soccer team came into the game on Tuesday night against Alhambra looking to even their season record to 7-7. The fans were expecting a close contest as Alhambra entered with a 5-3 season record having performed similarly against common opponents. Against that backdrop, the Dons came out and played arguably their best game of the season, a completely dominating 6-0 performance.
The defense stepped up again as the back lines of Ella Culbertson, Cassidy Smith, Lidia Stahl, Helena McGinley, Katelyn Weiss, and others kept the Alhambra offense at bay. In fact, they only yielded a couple shots on goal for the entire game, one in the first half that was saved by Cate Mercier on a diving play, and another towards the end of the game that Sophie Gold corralled. Alhambra did manage to get the ball in the goal on another shot, but it was called back for offsides.
The Dons dominated possession throughout the game, driven in part by strong midfield play from Grace Colaco, Evelyn Lee, and others. However, it was a bit of an inauspicious beginning for the offense as the team had some errant passes and shots, and shots on target by Nina Bundy, Kate Uffelman, Grace Eppinger, and Elodie Jensen were stopped by the Alhambra goalie. All of that changed with about 6 minutes left in the first half, when Julia Munter stole a pass and converted a shot to the far post.
The floodgates opened from there as the Dons scored another goal before half on a pass from Dani Green to Grace Eppinger, and then scored 4 times in the second half. The first came on a pass from Julia to Maddie Bernstein, the second on a booming kick from long distance by Dani Green, and then the last two were scored by Julia, securing her hat-trick for the game.
As I like to give shout-outs, here are a few. The first one is obvious … huge shout-out to Julia for the hat-trick. The other shout-out is to my research department who let me know that if she had scored four goals, it would have been called a “haul”, five goals would have been a “glut”, and six goals would have been a “double-hat-trick”.
“Get to know Coach”: Alex’s favorite restaurant is Melo’s Pizza.
Come watch the team as they host a rematch against Campo tomorrow (Thursday, Jan 25) @ 5pm