The Sobrato girls soccer team continued its quest for a birth in
the Central Coast Section playoffs with another shutout victory
Wednesday. The Bulldogs defeated Mt. Pleasant 5-0 and remained tied
for first place in the Blossom Valley Athletic League West Valley
Division with Silver Creek.
Morgan Hill – The Sobrato girls soccer team continued its quest for a birth in the Central Coast Section playoffs with another shutout victory Wednesday.
The Bulldogs defeated Mt. Pleasant 5-0 and remained tied for first place in the Blossom Valley Athletic League West Valley Division with Silver Creek.
Sobrato coach Stephanie Pearson said coming into the game she knew the Cardinals would be a tough team to beat.
Mt. Pleasant had won five of its last six games heading into Morgan Hill. The two teams met earlier in the season with the Bulldogs coming out on top 1-0.
The Cardinals are one of the few teams to have held Sobrato to under two goals in a game this season.
“This was a really tough opponent,” Pearson said. “I was worried about Mt. Pleasant. They are one of the more skilled teams we have played.”
The game started off with both teams attacking the ball well and putting pressure on the defense, but the Bulldogs were able to strike first.
Early in the half, junior forward Maureen King raced down the right side of the field with the ball and sent a centering pass towards senior forward Katie Alton. While the ball was in mid-air, Alton kicked it past the out-of-position goalkeeper to put the Bulldogs ahead 1-0.
While Mt. Pleasant had aggressive players who weren’t afraid to make contact while going for the ball, Sobrato used its speed to get around its opponent.
Shortly after Alton’s goal, junior forward Ashley Grose broke past a Mt. Pleasant defender and waited for the goalkeeper to challenge. Grose put a shot by the goalie to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 lead.
After going down by two, the Cardinals began rushing their passes and tried clearing the ball more from their zone. Mt. Pleasant couldn’t muster much offense while on its heels its own end.
With the Cardinals tired from chasing the ball around, Grose used her speed to break past three defenders and take a blistering shot from the right side of the goal. The ball hit of the goalkeeper’s hands and off the crossbar before finding the back of the net.
It was Grose’s second hat trick and fifth multi-goal game of the season. Grose now has 20 goals on the season and Alton is second in the division with 17.
Pearson said she is lucky to have a scoring duo like Grose and Alton up front. She added that there has never been a competition between the two forwards to see who will be the scoring leader.
“They’re a hard combination to stop,” Pearson said. “When they start scoring a lot of goals, they lay off the ball a bit and look for the pass. They are both competitive with themselves, but they are never competitive with each other.”
The Bulldogs offense slowed down in the second half as the team worked more on maintaing their lead rather than having possession of the ball. Sobrato’s ball movement wasn’t as fluid in the second half, but the goal margin was
too big for Mt. Pleasant to overcome.
“I was using a lot more substitutions,” Pearson said. “The other team made some adjustments and I give them credit for that. They played more man-to-man defense in the second half.”
Junior forward Remy Gross’s goal off a corner kick midway through the second added an insurance tally and completed the scoringn in Sobrato’s fifth straight win by shutout.
The Bulldogs next game is today in San Jose at Yerba Buena. With two games remaining in the season, Sobrato has a 14-3-1 overall record and 11-1 league record.
