Sports
St. Joseph's Academy Makes a Conference Statement
The Angels outplayed Ursuline Academy on a soggy field in a conference meeting, which could have repercussions in the district tournament as well.
Two top area girls' soccer teams met for an MWAA White conference matchup on Monday, and St. Joseph's Academy offense won out over host Ursuline Academy's conference-best defense 5-2. Ursuline had allowed only 11 goals all season prior to today's game.
St. Joe's senior Lauren Flynn struck first with the assist from freshman Kaley Nieters not quite half-way through the first half. Neiters had a nice run down the right side and cross pass for the assist.
"They're really coming together," coach Maureen McVey said. "We had those few loses early in the season...they're used to being the top team all the time, and those few losses woke them up."
Nieters figured in the second St. Joe's goal too. With 15 minutes left in the first period, her shot drew out Ursuline goalie, Courtney VonHaar, and senior Claire Champion followed through and shot it over the down goalie to make it 2-0 St. Joe's.
Ursuline answered with six minutes left in the half. Freshman Casey Chalupny took the corner kick and found senior forward Molly Huber, who scored using her thigh.
"We have some fantastic players that can step anytime that they want to," Ursuline coach Ashlee Slayback said, "problem is getting them to do it all the time. Our girls really did play well at times today, just gettign a complete game together."
St. Joe's senior Jessica Kelley lofted a long shot just over the fingertips of Ursuline goalie Mallory Yant five minutes into the second half, to go ahead 3-1. Urluline junior Maddie Friedman kept the Bears within one with an unassisted goal at 18:27.
"We noticed they were lossing their footing a little bit the first half," McVey said, "so we told our defense...just make sure you get the ball out, beacuse we had the lead, but everytime we'd get the lead, they'd come back."
The Angels went ahead 4-2 when Ursuline goalie, senior, Mallory Yant was given a red card defending a shot, and senior Abbey Stock put the resulting penalty kick in the right corner, past goalie VonderHaar. Freshman, Nieters found the net for the final goal of the game, putting St. Joe's ahead 5-2 with 12:10 left in the game.
"Our defense was very busy today," Slayback said. "St. Joe is a great team that is just going to run, and run, and run at you, and they were able to pop in
a few today."
Monday's game gives St. Joe's a conference record of 3-1 (11-3 overall). Ursuline is now 2-2 in conference and 11-4 overall.
The two teams are in the same district, so this game could make a difference in the tournament seeding.
Both teams have big games coming up this week. St. Joseph's plays at Incarnate Word (3-0, 7-3) on Wednesday and Ursuline is at Nerinx Hall (1-2, 11-5) on Thursday.