With just a few minutes left in the game, and possessing a two-goal lead, senior captain Julianna Calia knew that Archbishop Mitty could seal the game versus Leland with just one more goal. Suddenly, she found the ball right in front of her, and did just that, driving the ball into the goal for the second time in the game, as Mitty (3-0) took down Leland (2-1), 3-0.
Mitty wasted no time making its presence known. Within the first three minutes of the game, junior Paris Fox drove the ball at the net, which bounced off the goalie’s hands and landed in pay dirt to gain a 1-0 lead. Two minutes later, Calia placed the ball perfectly over the goalie to increase the Mitty lead to 2-0. No team scored after that for the remainder of the first half, but Mitty had all the momentum with a 2-0 lead at halftime.
The second half started off with more solid defense by both teams. Leland freshman Summer Ipsaro had a chance at scoring a goal in a 1-on-1 situation with the Mitty keeper, but the goalie made a huge save by putting her whole body in front of the ball to prevent the goal. Twenty minutes later, Calia scored her second goal to seal the game for Mitty, beating the previously undefeated Chargers.
Despite entering the game with an undefeated record, Leland was dominated in most aspects. The ball was on Leland’s side of the field close to the entire game. The Mitty defense was stifling, and did not allow Leland to get close to scoring a goal. However, the Leland defense did put up a good defensive effort in the second half, with Ipsaro standing out. She was constantly beating opponents in 1-on-1 situations, cutting off scoring attempts, and she seemed to always be around the ball.
Mitty head coach J.T. Hanley was proud of his team’s dominating win over an opponent that he respects.
“We play Leland almost every year. We’ve been doing that for the 10 years that I’ve been here. They’re a very good program, they have very good players, the coach has them really well organized, and it helps us to get ready for the WCAL play by coming over here and taking on a really good opponent.” Hanley said. “We try to really make certain that all of our opponents in the preseason are good quality teams, and Leland is definitely a great program. I thought they played really well today, and so obviously, I’m really pleased for the result, and the way we played.”
A team’s first loss is usually hard to swallow, but Leland remains optimistic about the rest of their season.
“I actually think that this loss is going to push us more because we only had six days of training as a team, and I think that this really helped,” junior Sophia Sydir said. “I would actually take this over the other wins we had last week, because we actually played hard, and it was an actual competition. Under pressure, we played pretty well, and as the game picked up, we got a little bit better. Of course, I would have wanted to have not lost 3-0, but I think it’s bright for the future.”
