One could not blame Cardinal Huskies Girls Soccer Coach Dakotah Ward if he walked around with a NOW HIRING sign on his shirt.
Match photos click here.
One could not blame Cardinal Huskies Girls Soccer Coach Dakotah Ward if he walked around with a NOW HIRING sign on his shirt.
In a game that features 11 players on the field at a time, Ward has just that number of ladies on his roster, putting a premium on keeping everybody healthy.
Saturday morning against a tough Pymatuning Valley Laker team that had enough players to keep bodies fresh, the Huskies fell behind early, battled back, but lost a player midway through the first half.
This made it an 11-on-10 match the rest of the way. The Huskies saw their energy tanks run dry midway through the second half in a 9-4 Northeastern Athletic Conference action loss.
“The girls played very well today,” Coach Ward said. “There’s not much you can do when you are forced to play shorthanded like we did today, but the effort was outstanding.”
The Lakers (2-1) are tough all the time, and when they jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first seven minutes of the game, it looked like a repeat of the Cardinal opener, a 10-3 loss to also tough Bristol. One key factor to pushing through, though, is that this group of Huskies, while short in bodies, is not short on desire or talent.
Cardinal (0-2) could have folded the tent and surrendered after losing Kendall Roach to an ankle injury midway through the first half. Instead, they did just the opposite.
Midway through the second half, Ivy Kaminski tallied her second goal to cut the margin to 6-4, and the Cardinal enthusiasm was spreading.
The Lakers, however, have both power and speed. Led by a midfield group buoyed by Mackenzie Kribbs, the defense would not allow Cardinal to advance closer, wearing the Huskies down until sophomore forward Jada Dismukes scored three of her five goals in the last 25 minutes of the contest, sealing the verdict.
With the man advantage for so long, PV applied full-pitch pressure, leading to Dismukes’ five goal outburst. Lindsey Shanks tallied twice, and Gia Cirino and Kribbs each drilled home a shot as they peppered Huskies keeper Lilah Turon with 38 shots. Turon stopped 23 of them completely, but some odd bounces eluded her and ended up on the foot of an advancing Laker forward.
Kaminski, a junior forward, had a stellar game for the Huskies with two goals. Eve Kaminski also added a goal and an assist, and Cambrya Kitsmiller drilled a shot home.
No, the Huskies never let up. In fact, Cardinal got off 17 shots on the Laker keeper, who had six saves, Once Roach was forced to the bench, though, and PV had several players to rotate into the game, the Huskies could only blink and press ahead.
“When you are down a player, it really forces a team to work harder,” Ivy Kaminski said as she headed home. “It really gets difficult as a team. You get tired. But you have to play hard, and we did that.”
“We have some good younger players in our youth leagues,” Coach Ward added. “Hopefully, when they get into high school, we will see more of them playing. Right now, we have some good players, so we will keep working with what we have.”
The final scores of the Huskies’ first two games this season are not indicative of how good this team really is, or can be. The trick will be to get more of their friends out for the team.
