MTZ girls soccer wins two conference matches
By BLAKE FAITH
Staff Writer
The Mt. Zion girls soccer team picked up two Apollo Conference wins last week against Charleston and Lincoln.
Against Lincoln, the Braves controlled the ball in the midfield, but failed to convert on scoring opportunities. That changed in the 31st minute when Wrigley Donahue rebounded a shot off the Lincoln goalkeeper’s muffled save and shot the ball into the left-corner of the goal.
“It wasn’t the prettiest for us,” Head coach Jonathan Moore said. “We were having trouble connecting passes and our communication wasn’t really good. But I just told them to find a way to win so that’s a positive for sure. But you know we could have been better today and we missed Katie Oliger today, because she is that connector in the midfield.”
The Braves defense allowed only six shots total to the Railers and three of them were saved by Denver Anderson. In the second half, the Railers failed to get a shot off.
The Braves added an extra goal late in the second half. In the 52nd minute, Mackenzie Krieger crossed the ball into a cutting Isabelle Holmes. Holmes cut to the left side of the goal and netted the goal to give the Braves a 2-0 lead.
The Braves added their final goal of the night with two minutes and 50 seconds left in the game. Maddie Kendall shot the ball from outside the 18-yard line into the right-corner of the goal to give the Braves a 3-0 win.
Against Charleston, the Braves won 3-0. The Mt. Zion girls soccer team improved to 11-2 overall this season and will face Mattoon and Mahomet-Seymour this week.
“With Mattoon we are familiar with them and we’re familiar with their scorers,” Coach Moore said. “We got to make sure we’re doing a good job of marking off the ball. And we have to communicate and I think that will be big for us. Because we talked about, you hear the good teams. You can just hear the difference. And we have to be that way and we have to communicate. So when we do make mistakes, rather defensively mistakes, you can fight your way through with it.”
