ELIZABETHTOWN – Junior Mya McDonald fired in a ‘Hat Trick’ of 3 goals Monday night to lead East Bladen to a 3-0 non-conference girls’ soccer victory over Whiteville.
The teams were deadlocked in a scoreless tie until McDonald broke the ice with a goal 4 minutes before halftime. Six minutes after halftime McDonald struck again with her 2nd goal, then closed out the scoring with a goal in the 77th minute.
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Photos by Kenneth Armstrong
“The girls played well and brought a lot of energy and physicality tonight,” said East Bladen Coach Jay Raynor. “I felt the girls grew a little more tonight. Great team effort. Due to some injuries we had to move to people around. I thought the girls did really well handling that adversity.”
East Bladen outshot the Lady Wolfpack 23-7, and senior Lily Lin was credited with 4 saves in goal. “Lily made several difficult saves,” noted Raynor. “Merritt Martin, Zoe Smith, and Molly Evans did really well in the back tonight. They stopped several dangerous attacks.”
Raynor continued, “Reese Hester and Sara Gargala controlled the midfield and made some big stops on their counter attacks. Katie (Evans) and Acee (Campbell) were up and down the field all night. They both did great jobs of helping initiate our attack. We wanted to make their backline make some plays. Those two young ladies made sure to dump balls onto their backline which allowed Mya and BB (Josephina Torres) to make some plays inside the 18 yard box.”
East Bladen, now 4-0, will host West Bladen Monday at 3:30.