Girls Boys Sectionalsoccer results sectionals
MISHAWAKA — The girls soccer teams from Plymouth and Culver Girls Academy were supposed to play last Thursday to end the regular season. Instead, the first meeting this year between the Marshall County rivals was Tuesday night in a Class 2A Sectional 19 friendly.
Fittingly, the Lady Eagles were led by a couple of Birds and move on after defeating the Lady Rockies, 3- 0, at ABCO Field in Mishawaka.
“The team did not want its season to end early,” said CGA head coach Nathaniel King. “We knew with Plymouth we had to get on top of them because they possess athleticism and power, so it was imposing our physicality and getting into our game. We’ve got some speed demons and it showed. We knew Plymouth was going to press us high which meant there would be spaces behind their back line so we played to those spaces and it was off to the races. “
CGA used that speed up top to keep the pressure on Plymouth’s defense and held off a second-half flurry of near-misses by the Lady Rockies and will now face New Prairie in the second semifinal on Thursday starting around 7 p.m.
Brighton Bird put CGA on the board in the seventh minute. After a restart, the sophomore collected a rebound after a blocked shot in front of the goal, then blasted the ball off the top of the post and into the goal.
“Brighton was in the right place,” added King, whose team had two other shots go off the post but bound out in the first half.
CGA’S second goal didn’t come until the 61st minute. Quinn Bird, Brighton’s cousin, booted a shot from close range that PHS keeper Mia Wojcik got both hands on, but the speed of the shot was enough to get through and trickled into the goal.
“Quinn plays like a senior.,” King said of the freshman forward Bird. “She’s strong. She’s dynamic. She still has a lot of learning and developing to do, but she came up big for us.”
The last goal was a textbook soccer play with Alexa Labella feeding a pass to Samantha Hazen, who promptly sent it to the back of the net in the 75th minute.
“Sam is one of our captains and now has 20 goals,” King said of the senior and team’s top scorer. “I told her she was going to have to bring others into the game and because of that work, she was rewarded with that goal.”
Plymouth had plenty of opportunities, but nothing went in. In the first half, almost every shot went right to CGA keeper Isabel Herrera. In the second half, Herrera made a diving stop on a Lexi Rose offering to
stop a goal just seven minutes after the break. Less than a minute later, there was all kinds of action in front of the Eagles’ goal on a Plymouth corner kick, but somehow no goal was scored. With the score still 1-0 in the 49th minute, Aubrey Vervynckt may or may not have been fouled in the box, which would have given a penalty kick with the chance to tie.
The best chance for PHS to score though, came in the 50th minute and the score still only 1-0. Lindsay Janus made a strong dribble move and Herrera came way out to make a play, but Janus got around her too. When she kicked toward the open net, CGA’S Kate Barry was somehow there and her header sent the ball out of danger, saving a sure goal.
“It just shows the commitment our players have,” King said of the sequence. “You can be organized, you can be technical, but if you’re not ready to compete, forget about it. Second half, it was all Plymouth the first 15-20 minutes, but we weathered the storm. We got through that and the spaces started to open up and I knew we’d get more chances to score.”
“CGA had some speed. They played well,” said Plymouth head coach Stephanie Ferch. “They had a couple extra back on defense which messed up our offense a little bit. We got unlucky when some shots didn’t fall, but we also got lucky that a couple of theirs hit the post.
“We’ve had one of our better years. Our seniors led us well and worked hard. We had some great moments in big game and some fun moments. We’re just sad that it ended so soon.”
• CGA 3, PLYMOUTH 0
SECTIONAL 19
At Mishawaka
CGA - Brighton Bird 7th min
CGA - Quinn Bird 61st min
CGA - Samantha Hazen (Alexa Labella) 75th min Shots: Plymouth 22, CGA 18
Saves: Plymouth 8 (Mia Wojcik), CGA 12 (Isabel Herrera) Fouls: Plymouth 1, CGA 7
Corner kicks: Plymouth 5, CGA 5
Records: Plymouth 9-5-2 (final), CGA 7-8