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Last Updated: Jul 21st, 2008 - 09:27:48 |
She's a keeper.
Amy Moody, captain of the College of the Redwoods women's soccer team and its goalkeeper, gave an outstanding defensive performance on Friday -- despite the fact that CR fell to Southwestern Oregon Community College 5-0.
”She's a gamer,” said CR head coach Lyle Wilks. “She's aggressive and gets things done.”
Ordinarily, when a keeper gives up five goals in a soccer match, one might assume that she had a very bad game.
But Moody was not bad, she was brilliant, making multiple sensational saves against a very talented SWOCC team that maneuvered and attacked on the Corsairs side of the field for probably 85 of the 90 minutes in the game.
For those unfamiliar with SWOCC, the Lady Lakers from Coos Bay, Ore., only lost two of their 23 soccer games in 2006, when they won the championship of the southern region of the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges.
Southwestern -- per Oregon guidelines -- has eight scholarship athletes on its roster; CR has none.
The SWOCC offense -- as advertised -- exhibited crisp passing and patience, two hallmarks of a very good soccer team. They were also relentless, firing 24 shots on goal, several going just wide or over the crossbar.
The SWOCC goalkeeper looked like the lonely Maytag repairman on the TV ads, waiting for a call -- that never comes -- to spring into action.
During the entire match CR offered only two weak shots -- one a header and the other a lob.
At first, CR kept SWOCC scoreless, as Corsair defenders Ally Sebedra and Darcie Young used sliding tackles and clearing kicks to repel Laker forwards.
But 15 minutes in, Natasha Sawall broke the ice with a well-placed kick into the far corner of the net to give SWOCC a 1-0 edge.
Barely five minutes later Moody faced down -- without help getting back in time -- two streaking Lakers, and made perhaps the defensive play of the game when she blocked a hard, close kick and snared the rebound.
Around the 25-minute mark Sarah Dredge gave SWOCC a 2-0 lead, and five minutes later Megan Franko, after a teammate's header hit the crossbar, scored on a scramble in front of Moody to put the visitors comfortably ahead 3-0.
Even though Redwoods was down 3-0 at halftime, Moody's determination -- epitomized by making acrobatic dives and deflections, outracing strikers to rolling balls, smothering rebounds, and knocking away headers off corner kicks --prevented at least four or five more SWOCC goals.
During the second half, CR looked winded, but managed to prevent further scoring for the first 30 minutes.
But the visitors stepped up their passing and stayed deep in the CR zone.
”We were fatigued and under a lot of pressure,” said Wilks.
At the 32-minute mark Franko ended up with the ball just outside the box, where she executed a nice spin and drilled a left-foot bullet that beat the diving Moody.
The fifth SWOCC tally -- off a free kick by Franko three minutes later-- seemed to have Beckham-like magic as it passed through the CR line.
In the darkness of defeat, Wilks found some silver living.
”We haven't played well as a team,” he said, “but this was a building block for us, and the women were all battlers.”
Today's game -- scheduled for 3 p.m. -- against Contra Costa College has been canceled, due to the Comets' inability to field a full team to bring north from San Pablo.
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