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Wednesday,
October 7, 2009
By
Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.”
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| 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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