JAY — Ashlee Quirrion doesn’t like to look at opponents’ eyes. They lie, she said.
Whatever the reason, she looked at Lexi Fryover on Monday as the Mountain Valley forward was lining up a penalty stroke — with 29 seconds remaining in regulation time, and with Quirrion’s Spruce Mountain squad clinging to a one-goal advantage.
“She was looking straight at me,” Quirrion said. “I don’t usually try to look at their eyes, but the way she was standing, it looked like it was going to come right at me.”
On the whistle, Fryover lifted the ball toward the cage — right at Quirrion, who stutter-stepped to her right and batted the ball away with her left hand. The Phoenix cleared the ball and ran down the clock, preserving a 1-0 victory over the Falcons to remain unbeaten on the season at 6-0.
“It was pretty touch-and-go there all the way to the end,” Spruce Mountain coach Julia Parker said. “With 30 seconds to go, it was still anybody’s game.”
The play that bore the penalty stroke was indicative of play in the second half. The ball came down the field on a long hit from the Falcons’ midfield. The team’s attack wings swarmed the ball and put pressure on Quirrion in tight.
“I looked down and all I could see was blue shin guards,” Quirrion said. “I covered it, figured I’d go with the stroke and if they score, we go into overtime. We’ve done well in overtime so far.”
By saving the shot, overtime wasn’t necessary this time around.
The Falcons (3-2-1) were all over the Phoenix in the second half, pressuring Quirrion and the Spruce Mountain defenders with chance after chance from the outside. But despite all of that pressure, and an 8-3 advantage in penalty corners in the second stanza, they managed only five actual shots on Quirrion, including Fryover’s penalty stroke chance.
“I think you were looking at tired players,” Mountain Valley coach Melissa Forbes said. “I think they were worn out.”
For the Phoenix, the win continues the validation process for the program, which moves into Class B this season after Jay and Livermore Falls each competed separately in Class C a year ago.
“The is probably our biggest game this year,” Quirrion said. “Being the underdog, new team to Class B, we’re proving ourselves as a team, that we can play with people. We’re not going to sit down because we’re new.”
For as much pressure as Mountain Valley exerted in the second half, the Phoenix were equally as aggressive in the first. The teams waged a contentious midfield battle in the opening 10 minutes, but the field began to tilt in Spruce Mountain’s favor thereafter. With 18:07 to play in the first, the home squad rattled the cage with the game’s lone goal on their second of three penalty corner chances of the half. The ball initially bounced beyond the circle on the inbound pass, where Micaela Baron gathered it and rifled it back into the circle. There, Randy Duguay corralled it and swept it past keeper Emily Gallant.
“Kathryn (Ventrella) made a good inbound pass, and someone missed it up top,” Duguay said. “Micaela was there to back her up, and she made a good pass in to me on the inside.”
In the last 10 minutes of the first half, both goalies came up big. Quirrion stopped a flurry at one end, and then Gallant had her turn, preventing the Phoenix from growing their lead.
“(Gallant) did her job after the goal,” Forbes said. “I think the girls played well in the second half, they came out hard and played well.”
At 6-0, Spruce Mountain is already thinking ahead rather than dwell on an important victory.
“We just keep looking at this all one game at a time,” Parker said. “We have Wednesday off and we have a lot of work to do. We’re happy to be here, but we know we still have to keep progressing to get to the end of the season. They’re going to want it even more next time we see them, so we’re going to have to be ready.”
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