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Stonewall ties Gar-Field in girls soccer
For Stonewall Jackson, a little something is better than nothing.
The girls’ varsity soccer team started off its season Tuesday night without losing much standing in the Cedar Run District ranking as the Raiders battled visiting Gar-Field to a 1-1 tie.
Stonewall and Gar-Field fought through two over times and a wicked wind that whipped and whizzed through the referee’s flags throughout the game, providing for a blustery atmosphere.
Morgan Rawlins booted the Raiders’ only successful shot of the game during the third minute of the second half. She broke the scoreless affair after receiving a bouncing pass from teammate Alyssa Cage.
“…After you take that pass, you don’t stand there and watch that,” Stonewall coach Pierre Slaiby said of how the play was designed.
Rawlins’s shot seem to float in suspended animation as it was a slow arching kick above the goalie’s head that just so happened to find the back of the net.
“You practice those in practice, the little volleys that go over the goalie’s head,” the coach stated. “So, if the goalie doesn’t come out to that ball, you’ve got a nice shot.”
Eight minutes later, Gar-Field struck back when the Indians’ fast-break style offense finally worked and was not blown dead by an offside call.
Her teammates running even with her the width of the field, freshman forward Hannah Fulgencio waited and waited for everything to be synched up just right deep inside Stonewall territory. She finally burst through the middle of the field and cracked a shot to the top-right shelf of freshman goal keeper Joy Caracciolo.
We kind of relaxed after our goal. They kind of caught up on our heel,” said Slaiby, later adding, “With that give-and-go that they do, that kick and run: if you lose focus of it, then you’ll get caught on it.”
Gar-Field clearly controlled the tempo in the first half of the game. However, before Fulgencio’s goal, offside penalties killed numerous offensive drives.
A Stonewall statistician counted more than 20 offside penalties called on Gar-Field throughout the game, according to Slaiby.
“Gar-Field played more of a kick ball game,” Slaiby said. “So it’s kind of hard to defend that. One pass, and then kick, and then they run through. So, the way you play smart defense, you let them do that, you push up and then you catch them offsides every time.”
At the same time, Stonewall played mostly penalty-free ball in the first half. A powerful right leg from Brenda Mendez served as a defensive and offensive weapon as she would clear more than half the field with some of her volleys, forcing Gar-Field to pick up the defense on its own side of the field.
The Indians’ relentless attack, personified most by freshmen Fulgencio and Tammy Clark, kept Stonewall away from many scoring opportunities in the first 40 minutes of play. That aggressive style of play culminated in the final two minutes of the first half when Caracciolo collided into Fulgencio near the goal post, knocking her Indian opponent to the ground.
“She’s starting to become more aggressive toward the ball,” commented her coach. “They had a lot of opportunities and breakaways. And if she does go out there and get that ball, she’s getting scored on.”
Then, with less than 20 seconds to go before the halftime buzzer, Caracciolo warded off her biggest challenge of the night to the point when the Indians broke loose on a three-on-one situation.
The three Gar-Field forwards attacked from Caracciolo’s left side, dribbled the ball around and set up a shot. But the Indian attacker’s foot barely clipped the ball as she swung from point-blank range, keeping the ball in play.
“Even though the referee doesn’t blow that whistle, you keep playing it,” Slaiby said, referring to Caracciolo. “And she did; she stopped the ball when she had to.”
A moment after the botched kick, a sideline referee blew the play dead as Gar-Field had once again gone offside.
In the first over time period, Stonewall’s Dunn cranked the team’s only legitimate shot on goal during the extended play. With 2:45 on the clock, she ricocheted a kick off the left goal post and out of bounds.
Gar-Field did not do much better.
Clark led an Indian breakaway late in the first OT period only to fall down and allow Stonewall defender and team captain Brittany Bobbitt to clear the ball away from the net.
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