Wood Girls’ Soccer Edges Dominion, 2-1

Posted: April 15, 2015
By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — When a red card comes out, the team that benefits doesn’t want to show the same level of aggressiveness a bull does when it sees that color, but they certainly don’t want to be passive.

Playing with a man advantage, James Wood made sure to take full advantage to start the second half.

The Colonels scored twice in the first three minutes after the break, then held off a furious Dominion rally over the last 20 minutes in a 2-1 Conference 21 victory Tuesday night on the wet grass of Kelican Stadium.

The Titans (3-4, 0-1 Conference 21) held a 4-1 shot edge when they had a player sent off with a red card with seven minutes to go in the first half.

James Wood (4-2, 2-1) didn’t take advantage immediately — as Colonels coach Jim Carden notes, a team tends to band together when it’s undermanned — but James Wood’s blazing start to the second half turned out to be the difference in a tightly contested game.

“Getting those early goals in the second half really took away any momentum that they thought they had,” said James Wood senior forward Alex Stanford, who assisted sophomore forward Neary Casebolt’s goal 40 seconds into the second half before adding one herself two minutes later. “They might have come out thinking they were going to go full-speed ahead, but we quickly shut that down, which was really great for us.”

It was a really great win for everyone associated with the Colonels. Though Dominion graduated 11 seniors from the team that won last year’s Group 4A state championship, they still feature players like speedy All-Conference 21 junior forward Breanna Mitchell. Mitchell nearly brought the Titans to level when she scored with 20 minutes left, then had a partially deflected shot a minute later roll off the post.

“They’re the defending state champions,” Stanford said. “Winning this game is definitely a mental boost for us, and something we’re going to carry on hopefully for the rest of the season.”

Casebolt was tackled just outside the penalty box to draw the red card in the first half, and her strong finish at the start of the second half broke the tie.

Junior defender Abby Lanham got things going with a throw-in near midfield down the right sideline to Stanford, who let the ball run and turned upfield. As she neared the penalty area she passed the ball along the ground to Casebolt, who took one touch before drilling the ball into the far left corner from about 15 yards out.

About two minutes later, Stanford pounced on a ball played by James Wood sweeper Adrienne Thomas toward the top of the penalty box. Dominion goalkeeper Alie Brandt (four saves) hesitated in her reaction to the ball, and Stanford split her and a Dominion defender before flicking the ball over Brandt on her first touch for a 2-0 lead.

“She came across on an angle, and the keeper really didn’t see her coming,” James Wood coach Jim Carden said.

Dominion managed a couple shots in the next 17 minutes, but the Titans didn’t truly start applying pressure until Mitchell scored after getting behind the defense and having her shot deflect off a James Wood defender and into the goal with 20 minutes left.

A minute after that goal, the Titans played a long ball behind the defense to Mitchell, who flicked a shot that was partially deflected by James Wood senior goalkeeper Charlie Woods-Hulse (eight saves).

If not for the deflection, the ball might have rolled into the goal instead of hitting the post. James Wood junior right back Briana Heustis — who played a strong game in defending Mitchell — ran back to clear the ball out of the goal area to keep it a one-goal game.

Dominion kept pressing, but Woods-Hulse was up to the task on any shot that made it through. Her right-leg kick save with just under three minutes left was one of her biggest saves that she made to preserve the win.

“I knew I had to be confident tonight, because we all knew [Dominion was] a good team,” said Woods-Hulse, who in addition to her eight saves gobbled up several loose balls in the box. “If I wasn’t confident, I knew I wasn’t going to [save] the ball.”

Carden said he felt the Colonels gave Dominion a little too much space to work with on offense at times in the second half, which helped the Titans mount threats. (Carden did move Stanford back to help the defense for the last 15 minutes.)

Overall though, he couldn’t have been more pleased with the effort.

“We know we can play, and we played really hard,” Carden said. “We are a blue-collar team.

“We’re not going to knock the ball around and keep possession 80 percent of the time, but we wait for our spots and make our runs, and we had two fantastic goals. I thought our defense played well. This is a fantastic win for us.”

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