On Friday Acalanes was closed for the holiday weekend, but the Varsity Dons were on campus for their makeup game against Alhambra HS. It was a beautiful afternoon game where the girls got to play in daylight and sunny weather after having their Northgate game suspended the night before due to the downpour and flooded field.
The Dons came out in dominant fashion, moving the ball around extremely well and keeping the majority of possession. It only took three minutes for the Dons to get on the board when Alex Salazar beautifully fed a pass to Taylor Mikalis for a shot that the Alhambra goalie initially deflected, but it wasn’t enough to stop the momentum and the ball found the inside of the goal. Dons up 1-0!
The usual suspects Salazar, Mikalis, Nicole Nguyen, and Lucca DeBiasse continued their nice work up front to challenge the Alhambra defense. Mikalis found herself with multiple defenders at one point, so she passed back to defender, Tatum Keely, who had a strong shot that JUST bounced off the crossbar and over the goal.
Alhambra tried to counter with a run up the line, but our defense consisting of Keely, Avery DeMent, Cassidy Smith, and Tori Hiatt were ready and broke it up with ease. Alhambra kept up the pressure and managed to get a free kick that entered the box, but goalie Sara Tarnai came out to make an easy catch.
After these few Alhambra possessions on the Dons defensive half, the midfield and forwards seemed to come back with a vengeance. The Dons repeatedly attacked with efficient passing and six unanswered shots up front through nice work between Salazar, DeBiasse, Nguyen, Mikalis, Keely, Lily Polkinhorn, Stella Hamilton, and Sisi Houston. The Dons very nearly got their second goal when Houston’s shot got deflected out to Nguyen who passed to Salazar who sent it on to Mikalis for a short lofting shot that the goalie saved by stretching high and somehow managed to catch behind her body. After a bit of back-and-forth, the Dons did manage that second goal when Leila Hamidi had some strong midfield work to win the ball, which enabled DeBiasse to pass up to Salazar who had a quick couple dribbles to get past her defender for a shot and goal! Dons up 2-0!
The Dons strongly closed out the first half with some strong defense by DeMent and Hiatt to go with some nice goalie saves by Tarnai. The midfield work stayed strong with Elodie Jensen, Kate Uffelman, Danica Green, Hamilton, and Nguyen strongly challenging the Alhambra players. Uffelman even had a nice heel pass to Jensen at the top of the box that was unfortunately broken up by the Alhambra defense. JV guest players Grace Eppinger and Julia Munter got in on the offensive action before the half came to a close.
The Dons found themselves up against a fired up Alhambra team as the second half began. The Alhambra renewed energy seemed to force Acalanes players on their heels. Our defense was tested a number of times, but DeMent, Hiatt, and Houston held strong. Goalie Tarnai made a couple of beautiful saves to keep Alhambra off the scoreboard. Alhambra also showed they had a strategy to stop our relentless attacks up front – they started pulling their defense up and trapping our front line offsides. Although, a few offsides calls seemed to come purely because our front line of Hamilton, Salazar, Nguyen, and DeBiasse were merely faster than the Alhambra defenders. Unfortunately, Alhambra managed to get on the board when they earned a free kick in our defensive half. The Alhambra player converted with a nice shot in the upper left corner just out of Tarnai’s reach.
The rest of the game exhibited a lot of back-and-forth strong play by both teams. JV guest player Ella Culberston got in on the defensive action and at one point cleared a ball up to Salazar who freed herself up for a nice run and shot that was JUST wide of the goal. Things got a bit more physical as the teams battled it out, but the Dons found themselves dominating play again and getting off a number of very close shots – some saved by the goalie and others bouncing off the posts or crossbar. The Alhambra goalie had to make a couple of aggressive plays to stop Dons’ runs. One play even resulted in DeBiasse’s jersey getting ripped as her run got broken up. One last shot by Salazar and after the Alhambra goal kick the ref blew the whistle to close the match for a Dons win 2-1!
