EAGLES EDGE TUNINOS 1-0 AS SEASON WINDS DOWN

By Paradis Jolie Fejerang

In their second to last game of the regular season, the Harvest Eagles secured a victory on their home field over the Southern Dolphins. Ending the game with a final score of 1-0, Eagles captain Caden Milner took the winning kick in the first half but knew that her team had to keep the energy up to avoid having their southside opponents come back to even the tide before the final whistle blew.

Harvest came into the game with the stingiest defense, giving up only four goals on the season. The Eagles remain in second place behind the undefeated Academy Cougars, while the Tuninos hold on to the fourth spot despite the loss.

Even with the benefit of being on their home turf, the Eagles were nervous to face the Tuninos. “We knew Southern was going to be a physical team, so we knew we were going to have to play hard and aggressive,” shared the junior Milner. Keeping to the game plan, the Eagles kept major possession of the ball as Southern kept up the fight for a chance to break past their half and get a shot on the Harvest goal. 

It was in the 33rd minute that Southern granted Harvest the opportunity to score via free kick as a handball on their half led to Milner stepping up to take the shot. Looking to aim for the near post, Milner’s shot ricocheted just inside the post to hit the back of the net as it slipped just past the Southern keeper. 

“I was really nervous at first because that kind of goal is really important for the team, but I’m just really proud to be able to have gotten it to get my team the win.”

– Caden Milner on the only goal of the match

The half came and went and with the game not over yet, the Eagles knew that there was no room to ease up on the Dolphins. “Going into the second (half), we knew a 1-0 lead was not a safety or any security in a win. We knew the game would not be won until the whistle is blown, so we knew that we had to go out and play even stronger than we did in the first half,” Milner stated with a simple game plan in mind. “[We just need to] keep possession, be strong on defense, and be confident and composed when we have the ball.”

The Tuninos pushed the limits of this game plan as the second half of the game was nothing short of an amping up of aggression from both sides. As the Dolphins started getting more touches on the ball leading to more shots on goal, Harvest got more combative to keep the tension going and gameplay even with neither team being able to break away for long before the ball was overturned.

After the 50th minute and a couple of scrappy fights for possession as the Eagles upped their defensiveness, Tunino captain Cindy Maestrocampo found herself taking multiple hits to allot her team free kicks just outside of the box, though all narrowly missed the mark passing the goal from just above the crossbar.

Ending the game with a victory, the Eagles are looking forward to their final regular season matchup being another home game. This time, they will be facing the GW Geckos. Having scrimmaged the Geckos before, Player of the Game Milner shared that the Eagles are excited for the game but do not plan on underestimating GW at all. “That can be our biggest weakness; underestimating a team right before going in to play them. We’re going to go in really strong and we’re confident in ourselves.”

OTHER FRIDAY GAMES

Academy 3, Okkodo 1

JFK 4, St. John’s 1