Girl’s soccer was eliminated by Haddonfield from the SJSCA Coaches Cup on Monday afternoon 1-0.
The Pirates are now 14-2-1 on the year, while the Bulldogs are 20-0 in 2016.
The cutoff date for the playoffs was Saturday and the Pirates finished with 362 power points, good for first in South, Group 2. The seedings are not final yet.
The first half was dominated by the Pirates, who held possession in the Haddonfield zone for all but a couple of minutes.
“We know when we’re playing well, winning tackles and pressuring other teams, that’s when we’re playing at the best,” head coach Matt Digney said.
The score was deadlocked at zeros at the break, which Haddonfield used to regroup and change momentum of the match.
The Bulldogs came out of the break firing, getting a couple of quick shots on goal early in the second stanza.
“Unfortunately, the second half, we got out of balance,” Digney said. “They started playing more physical on us and we didn’t necessarily respond to it.”
It wasn’t until the Pirates had two consecutive corner kicks with under 15 minutes remaining in regulation that Haddonfield was able to take the lead.
After the second corner kick, the Bulldogs cleared the ball to midfield and advanced it one-on-one into the Pirates zone.
Haddonfield was able to get a shot off from 25 yards out that snuck into the right corner of the net for a 1-0 lead with 13:03 left in the game.
“They got that goal, which was a little bit of a mistake by us, but it was a good play by their girl,” Digney said. “Even then, I still thought we had chances to tie, but we just couldn’t put it away today.”
The Pirates had a couple of chances late in the game to tie, but could not find twine.
Haddonfield advances to the semi-finals of the Coaches Cup to face either #1 Eastern or #9 Lenape on Thursday night at Paul VI.
Cinnaminson will now focus on regrouping, improving and getting fresh legs over the final week of the regular season.
“We have a game tomorrow against a division opponent and two games later this week,” Digney said. “We still have a lot of things to get done, we still need to improve. We’ll continue to work hard and try to learn off this and get better.”
“We played nine games in 13 days. I think we’re just a little bit fatigued. This week we’ll get their legs back and get focused again.”
Cinnaminson hosts Liberty opponent Northern Burlington tomorrow at 3:45pm.
“Tomorrow is a division game, and if it mattered towards the division, I’d be a little concerned because some of these girls are limping around a little bit,” Digney said.
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