Wednesday, October 7, 2009

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Jill Mullrain PK in the 63rd minute gave St. Mary the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Secaucus, the Gaels' third straight victory.

RUTHERFORD – The position of sweeper is not the most glorious of the 11 positions on the soccer field. In fact, it is safe to say it is the opposite of that. Not only does the sweeper have the pressure of keeping the defense together and being the last line of defense before the goalkeeper, but being so far away from the opposing goal gives the sweeper virtually no chance to contribute to a team’s offensive flow. It’s not a position that St. Mary’s (Rutherford) Jill Mulrain especially loves, but one she plays in order to strength the back line and make her team better.

Locked in a scoreless duel with BCSL-National rival Secaucus, it appeared that Mulrain would command her usual duty of keeping the Gaels’ defense in sync. But when teammate Alana Lopez got taken down in the box and was slow to get up after being awarded a penalty kick, Mulrain wasted little time in letting her teammates know who was taking the kick. She knew it was a once in a blue moon opportunity and the senior made the most of it.

Mulrain’s kick went off the fingertips of Secaucus goalie Kelsey Snedeker and in with 17:42 to play for her first goal of the year. The Gaels then survived a last-second shot that hit the post as time expired to hold on for their third straight win. The 1-0 victory over Secaucus on Tuesday at Memorial Field reversed a 4-1 loss to Patriots just two weeks ago.

Secaucus keeper Kelsey Snedeker nearly steered the St. Mary PK outside the pipes.

“This one feels good, I’d say it’s our best victory of the year so far,” said St. Mary’s head coach Maria Fagan. “We dug deep in the second half and played with a purpose. I thought we moved the ball a lot better in the second half and we started to build confidence as the game went on.”

The game was mostly played in the midfield during the first half until a late flurry by Secaucus gave it a little momentum going into halftime. Both Cynthia Costello and Ariana Simon had scoring chances in the final five minutes of the half, but Costello’s shot went over the bar and Simon’s was saved by St. Mary’s netminder Brianna Coyle to keep the game scoreless.

“We had our chances, but we didn’t play with enough urgency today,” said Secaucus head coach Gino DePinto. “We didn’t communicate and they won all the loose balls in the midfield during the second half. I think we don’t play very well on the road and we never really got comfortable today.”

Behind Lopez, the Gaels came out stronger to start the second half. Instead of being back on their heels, they forced the action and attacked the flanks with more consistency.

Alana Lopez moving the ball up the field for St. Mary.

“I asked the girls at halftime who was playing their best game so far, and none of them raised their hand,” added Fagan, in her second year as the St. Mary head coach. “So how could we play our best as a team when each individual felt they weren’t playing their best? Our goals were to be first to the ball and play with confidence. We did that much better in the second half than we did in the first.”

After starting forward Amy Cuccinelli, who was playing well up to that point, went down with a knee injury, the offensive burden fell onto the shoulders of Lopez. Her size and speed gave the Patriots problems all game, but Snedeker made two nice saves to keep her off the scoreboard for the time being, but Lopez kept attacking. After splitting two defenders in the 63rd minute, she was taken down, which resulted in a penalty kick.

It appeared Lopez would naturally take it as the team’s top scorer. But as the first sign of her struggling to get to her feet, Mulrain took reign of the situation and stepped up to take the kick. Snedeker dove to her right to stop the PK and got a hand on it. However, it deflected off of her fingertips and into the side netting to put the Gaels in front, 1-0.

“The penalty kick didn’t go to the exact spot I wanted, but it went in and that’s all that matters,” said Mulrain. “I was definitely nervous because the game was on the line. We are always so competitive with Secaucus and this game meant a lot to us.”

St. Mary's Amy Cuccinelli was playing well before suffering a knee injury.

Secaucus made a late rally in the final minutes to try and force overtime with its two best scoring chances of the entire game coming in the final 90 seconds. Gabriella Fumia’s shot from 10 yards out went just over the bar and a long, knuckling shot from Heather Krause hit the right post as the final whistle sounded with St. Mary squeezing out a its second 1-0 win in its last three games.

With its third consecutive victory St. Mary improved to 5-3 on the season. Coyle made nine saves to earn her third shutout of the season. Snedeker had six saves and Costello was all over the field for Secaucus, which fell to 3-3-3 with the loss. The Patriots also got solid games defensively from Laura Mondadori and Gabriella Visaggio.

Winning a close game like this will give the Gaels more drive to be the team to snap Hasbrouck Heights’ incredible record winning streak of 101 games against BCSL-National competition. They will get their shot at snapping that streak tomorrow.

But for Mulrain, it is back to her usual post of trying to shut down opposing offenses. She will have her hands full against the most dangerous offense in the league.

“Scoring is always fun, but I like the challenge of being a sweeper,” said Mulrain. “It feels great to win this game with the injuries we’ve had this season and how hard we fought to get this. Last year, we had problems with injuries and I think it got to us mentally. Now we’re much stronger mentally and noone really expects anything from us. So we have nothing to lose and we try to play like that every game.”

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