By Ted Waddell
LIBERTY — October 3, 2003 – In Tuesday’s non-league girls’ soccer match, the visiting Lady Dragons of Cornwall remained undefeated while keeping the Liberty Lady Indians winless on the season.
The Lady Dragons breathed fire from the getgo enroute to a 10-0 victory, and the home team booters must have breathed sighs of relief when it was all over.
Cornwall (8-0) scored six goals in the first half, starting at 38:04 when Marissa Cannella fired one past Liberty goalkeeper Christina Hinton on an assist by Christina Rizzi.
At 34:33, Alexis Auffray scored on an assist from Katie Powell, followed by a goal by Auffray off an assist by Kristen Bidosky at 29:25.
The Lady Dragons scored three more goals in the closing minutes of the half to make it a 6-0 ballgame.
Laura Hertel scored at 24:00 on an assist by Emma Bassett.
With 12 minutes remaining, Raquel Rodriguez fired one into the net on an assist from Christina Butler. And at the 9:31 mark Butler closed out the first half with an unassisted goal.
In the second half, Cornwall scored four goals as Lady Dragon Coach Rick Miller started rotating his players – eight subs off the bench and onto the field, eight players off the field for a short rest.
Butler scored on an assist by Rizzi at 34:00.
At 24:40, Christine Stathes scored on an assist from Rodriguez, followed at 21:00 by an unassisted goal by Rizzi.
The final goal of the game was scored by Alyssa McDonald on an assist by Shannon Whalen with four minutes remaining in what was a really long afternoon for the Lady Indians.
Liberty came close to scoring early in the second half, as Heather Williams went one-on-one with the Lady Dragons goalie, only to have what seemed like a successful shot bounce off the keeper.
The Lady Indians were hamstrung by a one-player bench, as three booters were sidelined by injuries and the other four players on the 19-member squad were out sick.
Cornwall came to play with a total of 19 booters.
“I thought they [Liberty] put up a good fight,” Miller said. “When you don’t have anybody on the bench, and we’re running the ball up and down the field, it makes it hard for the other team physically.”
Miller added that while he wasn’t one to run up a score, he didn’t have the heart to curtail scoring by substitute players who haven’t seen all that much field time and were looking for their first goals of the year.
Liberty Coach John Lennon was having a hard time keeping a stiff upper lip after the disappointing loss, but said that his team was trying to improve. And he keeps hoping for a win.
Hinton made 27 saves for the Lady Indians.
As the game wound down, most of the Liberty players came down with a case of the giggles, causing one of the referees to caution them that the combination of taking your mind off matters at hand and a slippery field was a recipe for injuries.
And for a team with only one player on the bench, that was something the Lady Indians did not need.