WALES — It took Monmouth Academy’s shooters nearly all of the first half to get their trajectory right, but the Mustangs finally capitalized before halftime. That lone goal stood and Monmouth held on for a 1-0 win in an MVC girls’ soccer game against Oak Hill on Thursday.
The Mustangs (3-0) missed high early, then hit shots that found the gloves of Oak Hill (1-1-1) goalie Anna Dodge. It took Tia Day getting an open shot on a counter attack, and that shot looping high enough but not too high, to fell Dodge and put Monmouth on the board with five minutes left before halftime.
“I just crossed it over and hit it with my left and hoped it either went to the corner or over her,” Day said, “and it ended up going over her because I got underneath it.”
That was the 10th of 11 Monmouth shots on goal in the first half (compared to four for Oak Hill), and many more would have been three points in a football game.
“Our game plan is always to take a lot of shots,” Monmouth coach Gary Trafton said. “We got a lot of quality shots today. A lot of quality shots, but the goalie made some nice saves, some of them were right at her, but just couldn’t find the net enough of the time.”
The shots the Mustangs were taking weren’t their normal variety. With a narrower field than they’re used to, Monmouth’s crossing shots and passes were harder to come by. So instead many shots came from outside the box, forcing Dodge to use her leaping skills.
“She’s a really good goalie. She’s really quick and she can jump too,” Day said. “So it is hard to score against her, so it’s kind of like shoot and hope it goes in.”
“I got to give credit to our goalie, Anna Dodge,” Oak Hill coach Jeremy Young said. “When she has the time and can see the ball, even the tougher ones she’s going to get to them, which certainly held us in this game. She did far more than we asked of her to do.”
Dodge finished with 19 saves for the Raiders. Her counterpart, Monmouth’s Katie Harris, had to make five, with an assist from her back line on a redirect of a Kierra Rolston flip throw-in in the first half.
There were still some tense moments for the Mustangs in the second half, clinging to a one-goal lead.
“When it’s 1-0, I’ve seen somebody take two shots and they score,” Trafton said. “You can’t give people a chance to get back in the game, and we did. We had a chance early in the game to get up two, three goals and we just couldn’t do it.”
“They understood they were still in it,” Young said. “Monmouth’s been a tough game for us in the past. They knew they were still in it, and they played well.”
But just like the opening minutes of the game, when the Raiders couldn’t put a shot on net from a half-dozen balls into the box, they couldn’t produce an equalizer shot before the final horn.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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