Written By Kerry Haselton
After tallying a lone goal on Wednesday, the United ladies in Pro-Activity pink put on their shooting boots today and dispatched the Hunterdon Dragons 5-1, in a dominant display. After settling the youngsters (not the new players, the kids!) and donning our kit, the next order of business was to find us some goalkeepers. Much bargaining ensued, and it appeared that some were almost willing to trade their first-borns for a free pass. Despite the trouncing I took playing goal indoors, I had to admit that I had in fact trained like 3 times with Catherine, so I put the gloves on.
It's really not that bad playing goal when you have Jeannette, Lindsay, Angel, Meags, and Kara playing in front of you. My butterflies began migrating when Jeannette sauntered into the box to head a Krissy corner kick into the upper ninety. That Jeannette- she keeps saying how she is getting very old, but she sure doesn't play that way. Things got even better when Maryanne got our second goal, again off a corner kick. It wasn't one of her power headers. It was more of a scramble goal. We dominated the half, with Linda and Claudia and our new player, Shannon, very lively up top. Hinesy and Erin and Harv and Krissy and Maryann were dominating across the midfield. I made one good save in traffic and watched Jeannette sweep. Not exactly hazard duty. I started to feel more comfortable. The half ended with the score at 2-0.
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| Maryanne sporting a bloody nose after taking a direct hit by the ball to the face |
We changed ends, and I noticed that we had to go uphill a bit. Just as I was saying "We need another goal," we got one. I think Erin scored it. It's hard to see from all the way back there! But Hunterdon had added a
third striker and things got busier in the back in the second half. At some point, not too far in, they got their goal on a shot from distance that was really no big deal and if I were playing defense I probably would have just dribbled and cleared, but I was in goal so I thought I should use my hands, and I forgot to dive.
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| Captain Harvey |
Our response was to immediately score a fourth goal. I think Linda scored it. It came off a lovely passage of play with many passes back and forth across the offensive half of the field. The ease with which we restored our 3 goal cushion broke the spirit of our opponents somewhat, but they continued to attempt through balls onto the foot of their exceptionally fast striker, Christina, and their wide forwards. We mopped up everything they could throw at us. Late in the game, it was a pleasure to see our Captain Harvey finish a lovely goal off her left foot. We proved to ourselves that we do have a lot of goals in this team and the ability to finish them off. If not for the performance of Hunterdon's goalkeeper, we might have scored many more goals. Let's keep up the momentum on Wednesday- Let's GO United!
Squad- Kerry, Angel, Jeannette, Krissy, Lindsay, Kara, Shannon, Maryann,
Claudia, Hines-y, Harvey, Linda, Meags, and Erin. DJ was there to cheer us
on- thanks, Dawn!
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