by Kyle Howard, photos by Kurt Howard

Kennedy Catholic went up against Decatur on a wet and rainy night for a girl’s soccer playoff match Wednesday night, Nov.2, at Highline stadium.

Please click the image above for more.

Rain was pouring all game long and the temperature was a chilling 45 degrees. These two teams had met previously at the beginning of the season with a big Lancer shutout victory over the Gators 6-0; the Gators at the time did not have all their players available to play due to injuries.

The scoring started just two minutes into the game when senior forward Jamie Hoffman scored the game’s first goal and what would prove to be the Lancers one and only.

The Lancers threatened again shortly after when Jamie Hoffman took a shot trying to score her second goal but the shot went wide. Kennedy Catholic then had two more shots on goal that were both blocked by Decatur goal keeper Allison Lewis. The Lancers were inches away from another potential goal when senior captain Kirsten Olson took a shot that hit the crossbar deflecting the the ball. Kennedy Catholic was able to score another goal but did not count due to the player being offside’s, preventing them from taking the lead.

With just one and a half minutes left in the first half Taylor Meadows scored on a corner kick, she kicked the ball perfectly over the head of the goal keeper into the net to tie the game at one.

Kennedy Catholic dominated the first half, controlling the ball, keeping it on Decatur’s side of the field, but the Decatur defense stood strong and allowed only one goal from seven shots Kennedy Catholic was able to get off. Decatur had a sloppy first half, they were called for several offside’s and committed 6 fouls, but Decatur’s goal keeper Allison Lewis stayed busy defending their goal, blocking eight Lancer shots.

The second half turned out to be a defensive battle; Kennedy Catholic was only able to get 3 shots on goal as Decatur was only able to get two. Decatur missed a goal opportunity when Kennedy defender Mollie Ditullio broke up an open shot from Decatur’s Hannah Herbert.

Decatur was able to get the game winning goal with 13:08 left, when Abby Mcfaul made a well placed shot over the goal keeper’s head for the goal to give them the lead 2-1.

The Decatur Gators stayed strong on defense the last minutes of the game to seal the victory in a 2-1 win over Kennedy Catholic.

Decatur head coach Christy Overby said she was proud of how they played.

“I think they came out and battled well, we tried to do a few things different during this game as to what we usually do," she said.

Heading into the next game she mentioned “going into every match you approach things differently, well look at this game to see what we need to do, and what happened tonight, seeing how our team played and what we need to do for the next match”.