La Plata girls soccer shuts out Patuxent
Ging scores twice as Warriors pick up road triumph over Patuxent
The shots clanked off the crossbar or the post, or in some cases rolled just wide of the frame, but La Plata’s girls soccer team couldn’t seem to put a shot into the net for the bulk of the first half at Patuxent High School on Monday night.
That had been a theme in the Warriors’ first three games of the season, as they had scored just one
goal throughout all three. But Kristen Ging changed the narrative at least for a night, putting one in the net in the late stages of the first half before adding another in the second half to lead La Plata to a 2-0 win in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference crossover contest.
“It felt so good to finally get one in,” Ging said. “We’ve been working really hard this year about putting balls on frame. We’ve been stressing our forward attack because we do have a strong defense, it’s one of our strengths, but working to
put the ball in the goal is one of our huge goals for the season. To finally put two in was really great for us.”
While La Plata (1-3 overall) had several near misses before Ging’s go-ahead marker with roughly four minutes remaining in the first half, Patuxent (1-1-1) had its share of opportunity in the opening half, as well, notably chances created by the speed of Taisiya Reid.
“Defensively, I can’t think of a faster player we’ve gone against,” La Plata head coach Kevin Barry said, “but I think we did a really good job of defending against her, especially after we recognized and made some adjustments.”
With a rather youthful squad, coupled with a stretch of strong teams on the schedule to open the season, the Warriors got off to a bit of a slow start, similar to their effort Monday at Patuxent. But as the game stretched into the latter portion of the opening half, Barry saw his team start to increasingly assert itself.
“We started the season with three tough teams in Northern, Wilde Lake and Howard,” he said. “We’re a young group and they stayed confident that once we started getting into SMAC that we’re going to grind one out. Every game is an opportunity to take that next step and tonight I think we did that.
“We’d been struggling with getting the ball in the goal. We leaned heavily on one of our captains, Kristen, to put two in. It was a good transition. We started the first 20 minutes a little sluggish and sloppy, but in the second part of the first half and the second half we started moving the ball better and moving the ball much more as a cohesive unit versus individuals.”
Patuxent is next scheduled to play at North Point at 6 p.m. Friday, while La Plata will look to keep building momentum when it hosts Great Mills at 4:30 p.m. today. The Warriors close the week with a scheduled game at Leonardtown at 6 p.m. Friday. After Monday
night’s showing, Barry felt good about the direction his team was headed.
“They’re a good group,” he said. “We’re a young team. We have seven sophomores and 10 juniors, but they have a lot of good energy, they work well together and they’re really just a fun team. I’m excited that the season is a couple weeks in and we’re going to keep moving forward.”
“I think this sets the tone for the season,” added Ging. “It was good to come out and get our first win and we’re just going to keep going forward from here. I’m excited to see how the rest of the games go.”