Girl’s soccer continued its hot streak to open the 2016 season on Tuesday with a 1-0 overtime win against Holy Cross.
The win propels the Pirates to 7-0-1 overall and 6-0 in the Liberty Division one turn through.
“We’ve played everybody once,” head coach Matt Digney said. “Now we flip to the second half of the conference. We will have the Moorestown’s, Delran’s and Holy Cross again. To get through the first half of the conference unbeaten is nice.”
The Lancers fall to 8-3 overall and 3-2 in the Liberty.
The shutout was the sixth of the year for the Pirates and keeper Maddie Ogden, who stopped six shots.
The loss marks the first time this season that the Lancers have been shutout.
These two teams have played some hotly contested, tight games in the past three years and today was no different.
“7-0-1. It’s been a great start to senior year,” Justyne Gutowski said. Gutowski scored the golden goal Tuesday. “We’ve beaten some really good teams.”
The Pirates fired eight shots in the first half, but could not slip one past the Lancers keeper.
The second half saw much of the same, with the Pirates enjoying scoring chances to no avail.
“We talked about going into the second half and overtime to keep on putting balls in the box and putting pressure on their goalie,” Digney said.
Cinnaminson won the game less than two minutes into the first overtime session when Alex Keck played the ball to Justyne Gutowski in front of the net.
Gutowski rocketed one off the post that ricocheted off the keeper and into the net for the game winner.
“We wanted a quick goal right from the start,” Gutowski said. “Alex brought it down the side. She had a nice cross and I volleyed it. It hit off the post and then hit off the goalie and rolled in.”
The goal was Gutowski’s second of the season.
“You can’t draw it up any better than that,” Digney said. “That was just a perfect cross, perfect volley, beautiful goal.”
“Justyne has a good knack for being in the right place at the right time.”
Cinnaminson dominated possession from start to finish, never letting Holy Cross get setup on offense.
“The defense has been lights out every game,” Gutowski said. “They really save us back there.”
The shots that the Lancers got off were from a good distance away from the box. Holy Cross never really had a true scoring chance in the match.
“I thought we did a good job. They had some opportunities. I’m confident with Maddie in net,” Digney said.
“Their shots were from distance and I feel like Maddie is going to get those all the time.”
Holy Cross had a couple of chances late in the second half to score, but the Pirates defense found ways to clear the ball out of the zone.
“We had one letdown today and that was the last five minutes in the second half,” Digney said. “We were able to punch through it and get that goal in overtime.”
Cinnaminson hosts Pemberton tomorrow night at 6:30pm under the lights at George D. Paternoster Memorial Field for Senior Night.
Cinn City News will have coverage of the match.
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