By Rob Potter
NARROWSBURG — September 15, 2000 – Scoring three goals in the first 10 minutes of a soccer game usually bodes well for that quick-striking team.
Such was the case Wednesday afternoon as Sullivan West/Jeffersonville-Youngsville scored a trio of goals early in the match and went on to a 8-2 win over Sullivan West/Narrowsburg in an Orange County League (OCL) non-divisional game.
Only 5:44 into the match, Shelisa Duquette took a pass from Christina Winski in front of the net and fired a quick shot past Narrowsburg goalie Beth Meyer.
Just 22 seconds later, Duquette, a junior striker, netted a second goal. She hooked a shot to the far corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.
Three minutes later, Aileen Semenetz scored the third Lady Trojan goal. During a scramble in front of the net, Semenetz gained control of the ball and kicked it at the net. The ball ricocheted off the left post and behind Meyer.
Duquette netted the hat trick with a goal late in the first half that gave J-Y a 4-0 lead at the halftime break.
J-Y (1–2) spent the majority of the first half in the Narrowsburg (1–4) half of the field, scoring those four goals on nine shots. The Lady Indians, meanwhile, were only able to fire three shots at Lady Trojan goalie Erin Bose.
One minute into the second half, Sandra Scholz scored on an assist from Semenetz for a 5-0 advantage.
But Narrowsburg closed the gap with two goals in a six-minute span.
First, Kim Jay beat Bose on a penalty shot to put the Lady Indians on the scoreboard. Then Heather Nober sent a high-arcing shot just over the outstretched fingers of a leaping Bose and under the crossbar to cut the J-Y lead to 5-2.
“In the second half, [Narrowsburg coach] Linda [Pomes] made some nice adjustments,” said J-Y coach Mike Ellmauer. “They put the pressure on us. Then we had to make adjustments to what they were doing.”
Adding goals later in the game for J-Y were Kristen Erlwein, Amanda Perry and Scholz, who also had an assist on Erlwein’s goal.
The win was the first for J-Y on the young season. Ellmauer noted that he and the Lady Trojans are still getting acquainted with each other as this is Ellmauer’s first season back as head coach after a five-year hiatus.
“The girls don’t know me and I don’t know them,” he said. “It’s taking a little time.”
Happy with the win over a former Western Sullivan League team, Ellmauer added that he has a good group of players and is looking forward to the rest of the season.
“Our division season starts Monday,” he said. “We’ll see what happens then.”
Pomes noted that aggressiveness was a key to the game.
“After the game I asked my team what they thought would have happened if we had played as aggressively in the first half as we did in the second half,” she said. “In the first half, we held back and let them get the ball. But in the second half, we were able to beat them to the ball.”
Pomes was also happy to see her young team — the Lady Indians have just two seniors, Meyer and Melanie Hector — make some long passes against the Lady Trojans.
“In other games we spent too much time at midfield,” she commented. “We lost our speed advantage by doing that.”
Bose finished the afternoon with five saves, while Meyer stopped eight J-Y shots.