Kept busy for 100 minutes by a persistent Wichita Northwest offensive attack, the Emporia High soccer team’s defense and goalkeeper Melanie Nuessen could easily have cracked four or five times, let alone once. Instead, they kept Northwest off the scoreboard and got the Spartans a tie against a very good team.
The EHS defense did plenty of clearing, and Nuessen stopped shots in every direction, making up for the Spartans’ rarely threatening offense and getting what coach John Decker considered a moral victory: a 0-0 tie.
“We’ll take that,” he said. “It’s better than a loss, and just to know that you can hold your own against a team that shoots that well and with that speed, hopefully that’ll be a real confidence-builder for the girls, to know that they can hang with a team like that.”
It wasn’t easy — Wichita Northwest (5-1-1) had control of the game from the first whistle, and had almost countless missed opportunities on crosses and balls in the box. The Grizzlies launched 16 shots on goal to only three for Emporia, and 35 shots total to the Spartans’ 10.
Perhaps no shot was scarier for EHS (4-3-1) than when Northwest’s Abby Widrig launched a distant shot from the near post with about a minute-and-a-half left in regulation. The ball took a high bounce in front of Nuessen and went over her head, but she had enough time to scramble back and cradle the ball before it could cross the line.
The Grizzlies had another strong chance on a cross with a little more than seven minutes left in the first 10-minute overtime period, but junior Chloe Blake made a stop on the play, and Nuessen swooped in behind her to pick the ball up and get rid of it.
Decker had good things to say about his entire defensive unit, with sophomores Bailey Sosa and Kelly Bacon both playing key roles in the shutout. Meanwhile, Nuessen was showing just about every goalkeeper’s skill she possesses. Sometimes, she looked like a shortstop, running down balls to each side of her. Other times, she looked like a center fielder, tracking and corralling high shots in a wind that blew strongly in the first half before dying down in the second. Her last great save of the game came with about 8:15 left in the second and final OT, when she jumped high on a line-drive shot by Kelsey Tracy and used her left hand to knock the ball back over the crossbar.
“They put, overall, really good pressure on the whole team,” Nuessen said. “I think we handled it pretty well, and defenders made mistakes, but they were there when they were supposed to be there, and it helped a lot. Pressure wasn’t that hard, since my defense was there, but I mean, it was a really good game, and pressure was high.”
Other than a couple of decent scoring chances for forward Jordan Sosa in the first half, the Spartans had trouble launching and sustaining attacks. Their last real chance came with about 5:20 left in the second OT, when Rachelle VanGundy booted a line-drive shot to the near post that was saved on a catch by goalkeeper Amanda Shook. In addition to getting just three shots on goal, EHS had only one corner kick; Northwest had nine.
Emporia has a quick turnaround after Monday’s marathon — the Spartans travel to Topeka tonight to take on Seaman at about 6:15 p.m.
neighbor (anonymous) says...
Nice job Melanie!
April 22, 2009 at 2:59 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )