MacArthur Girls Soccer Tops Garden City

Coming into the match, Garden City was atop the standings for Conference A1 with four wins against three losses. The girls have had a somewhat up and down season so far, but are looking to continue their winning ways of the last two games. Garden City has scored 16 goals and given up just three in their seven games to open the season. The Lady Trojans have spread the scoring around as they have had 11 different girls put the ball in the net.

MacArthur enters the game with a 3-2 record and are coming off a 7-1 victory over Wantagh. The Lady Generals have scored 11 goals in their five games while giving up just 3. Although they lean heavily on striker Hailey Hnis who has scored five times, MacArthur has the depth upfront to put pressure on even the best of defensive teams.

On paper this looked to be an evenly matched game and it certainly started out that way. Garden City pressed the ball in the midfield and made several runs at MacArthur keeper Lexie Thompson. Shots by Lauren Hohenberger, Kylie Brunning and Isabella Vona were quickly scooped up by Thompson.

On the counterattack, MacArthur played the ball through their midfield with serves from Carly Koprowski and Meghan Wetzel trying to find open space for Hailey Hnis, Fiona Killian or Sara Kealey. And at the midpoint of the first half MacArthur pushed up the right sideline and the ball found the feet of Hnis who quickly moved to open space and fired a shot that GC keeper Sophie Myers got a hand on for the save. But the ball had enough momentum that it struck the cross bar and fell to the feet of Kealey, who quickly put the shot over the prone Myers for the first goal of the game with 20 minutes left in the half.

The remainder of the half was a battle in the midfield with both teams having limited chances and both Myers and Thompson coming up with key saves. For Garden City the best chances came off the feet of midfielder Catherine Hayes and striker Emily Romeo. Hayes drove a shot that just went over the crossbar and Romeo fired a shot across the goal mouth that went wide of the goal.
For MacArthur, with Hnis blanketed by GC defender Caitlin McNaboe the chances came from Kealey and Kaitlyn Tung but Myers stood tall and the score remained 1-0 at the half.

GC Coach Mike Heedles had one question for the team at halftime - 'do you want this game?' And the girls responded with what may have been their best half of action in this season. Controlling play for minutes at a time, the Garden City girls had moved their game up a notch and attacked every loose ball.

The Garden City girls were attacking down each sideline trying to find an opening to beat keeper Thompson but the MacArthur keeper thwarted each of them. Early in the half, shots from Maya Costa, Hohenberger and Monaco got through but Thompson was there each time.

Garden City's best chance may have been a ball in the box that freshman Chloe Benik controlled and fired a hard shot that had tying goal written all over it except that Thompson was on her game and in perfect positioning to make the save.

With under seven minutes remaining in the game and GC pressuring the ball all over the field it was inevitable for MacArthur to counterattack forcing Myers to come up with several key saves to keep the Lady Trojans in the game. However with a little more than two minutes remaining Kealey got to a loose ball after a diving save from Myers and she buried it for her second goal of the match.

Garden City will try to regroup quickly as they travel to Manhasset on Thursday and take on South Side at home on Saturday. While MacArthur is home to Mepham on Thursday and then travel to Wantagh on Saturday.