All it took was one quality shot for the Emporia High girls soccer team to upend Manhattan on Tuesday night.
That’s because the Lady Spartans never let Manhattan answer with any good shots of its own.
The Emporia High girls got out to an early lead and then spent the rest of the game hounding Manhattan defensively, as Emporia (4-3) took a 1-0 victory to push its record above .500 with its third straight victory.
“I just saw a tremendous effort out there,” EHS coach John Decker said. “We refused to let them take quality shots. Manhattan is a good team. They pass the ball extremely well.
“We just didn’t allow them to take quality shots on goal.”
Though Manhattan out-shot the Lady Spartans 10-5 — with seven of the Lady Indians’ shots being on goal — Emporia was persistent enough on defense that the majority of the shots the Lady Indians took offered little challenge for EHS goalkeeper Melanie Nuessen, who recorded all seven saves.
Against Manhattan’s precision passing approach, the Lady Spartans consistently disrupted any offensive flow the Lady Indians mustered by challenging every ball at the point of attack.
“We knew Manhattan would be hard, but we beat them last year, and we knew we could beat them again,” senior midfielder Jessica Decker said. “We took it to them as hard as we could.”
Though Emporia only found the back of the net once, it would prove to be enough in the end.
The score came midway through the first half when sophomore Chloe Blake sent a cross from the right side into the middle of the field in front of the net. After the ball ricocheted around and started to get away from the net, EHS sophomore Jordan Sosa came sliding in to send the ball into the lower right corner of the net to put Emporia ahead, 1-0, in the 24th minute.
“I saw the ball start going out, and I love sliding,” Sosa said. “It was fun to get that in.”
That capped the scoring, though that wasn’t the plan, Coach Decker said.
“We had one goal, and obviously, we need to find ways to score more goals,” he said, “but when we’re struggling with scoring, if we can keep a team from taking quality shots on goal, we’ll be OK.”
Emporia next will play at Wichita Northwest on Monday.
Emporia 1, Manhattan 0
Tuesday at TRYSA
Manhattan 0 0 — 0
Emporia 1 0 — 1
First Half
Emp — Jordan Sosa (assist from Chloe Blake), 24th minute
Game Statistics
Shots — Manhattan 10, Emporia 5. Shots on goal — Manhattan 7, Emporia 4. Saves — Manhattan: Amber Petty 3; Emporia: Melanie Nuessen 7. Corner kicks — Manhattan 5, Emporia 3. Total fouls — Manhattan 3, Emporia 7.