MTZ girls soccer has bounce back week

By BLAKE FAITH
Staff Writer

After facing the two top-teams in the Apollo Conference, the Mt. Zion girls soccer team bounced back to win both of their games last week against Taylorville and Charleston.

Against Charleston, the Braves opened their scoring in the 13th minute of the game. Mackenzie Krieger netted a goal into the low left-corner of the goal. Three minutes later Krieger sent a ball into the middle to Wrigley Donahue who netted a goal into the low left-corner to give the Braves a 2-0 lead.

The Braves offense continued to put shots on goal, but couldn’t convert on the opportunities. Katie Olliger then crossed the ball that landed in Sydney Howerton’s feet. Howerton then took a shot into the left-corner of the goal that went right off the goalkeeper’s glove giving the Braves a 3-0 lead.

With nine minutes and four seconds remaining in the first half, Krieger got loose and scored again. Krieger got open on a breakaway and beat the Charleston goalkeeper to the ball and netted the ball into the net giving the Braves a 4-0 lead.

Krieger completed her hat trick about 12 minutes into the second half. The Charleston goalkeeper made a save, but couldn’t collect the ball. Krieger rebounded the ball and shot it into the back of the net to give the Braves a 5-0 lead. Maddie Kendall scored the sixth goal of the game for the Braves and the Braves won 6-0.

“I thought we played well,” Head coach Jonathan Moore said. “I thought it was a great way for us to go out our last game here on the turf. We showed progress a third time we played them and was our best one against them. So we love to see that progress throughout the years. So overall, we’re pretty happy. We haven’t seen a keeper play that high before. So you know, we had to make some adjustments and I like how we adjusted on the fly and we were able to use that to our advantage.”

The Braves improve to 13-4 overall this season and 5-3 in conference play. This week the Braves will face Eisenhower-MacArthur, Lincoln, Mattoon and Champaign Centennial in the last week of the regular season. The following week, the Braves will face Jacksonville in the IHSA 2A Jacksonville Regional.

“The ultimate goal is 4-0 this week and everyone stays healthy,” Coach Moore said. “Four games in a week can be tiring so we want to stay healthy and get four wins. We don’t want to look past MacArthur Eisenhower for sure on Monday and Lincoln Tuesday but Mattoon is a team that had our number last week and hopefully on their turf we can change that around a little bit.”