Sophomore Justyna Gargala recorded a hat trick Tuesday night to lead East Bladen to an 8-0 non-conference women’s soccer victory at St. Pauls.
Sophomore Trinity Carrol opened the Lady Eagle scoring in the fourth minute. “Trinity received a nice pass into the box from Maddie West and buried the pass into the back of the net,” said East Bladen Coach Jay Raynor.
Junior Alexa Hernandez converted a feed from sophomore Lexi Mendel into the second East Bladen goal 16 minutes later.
Mendel’s second assist of the night set up Gargala’s first goal in the 28th minute. Gargala finished the shot from 12 yards out to give East Bladen a 3-0 halftime lead.
Four minutes into the second half, it was West’s turn to convert a pass from Carrol into a Lady Eagle goal. The scoring slowed down until freshman Hannah DeVane knocked in her first goal of the season to push the lead to 5-0 in the 60th minute.
The Lady Eagles continued to pressure the St. Pauls backline and earned a corner kick that Claire Campbell would hit from 18 yards out off of an assist from Gargala.
Gargala would finish out the scoring for East Bladen by hitting her next 2 shots in the 74th and 75th minutes. The second of those goals was set up by a Hernandez assist.
“Overall I thought we played a great game,” said Coach Raynor. “St. Paul’s was better than the scoreline indicates. We scored early and anytime you can do that you are putting the other team in an uphill battle. Combine that with the pressure and numbers that we throw at defenses and it’s tough to get back in the game.”
The Lady Eagles outshot St. Pauls 20-0 in the game.
“I thought our defensive play was good,” continued Raynor. “We didn’t pressure a few times and fortunately nothing came of it and we were able to handle what they threw at us. Kathryn Cole had another shutout and did not have to make a save on the night. Kathryn touched the ball only 3 times in the game.”
“Her backline played extremely well, and Claire (Campbell) kept them organized as usual,” said Coach Raynor. “Had a few offside traps and made some really good decisions in the back. The key again was the suffocating defense that we played. We seemed to be uptight in the first half but loosened up after the break and that was the difference.”
Raynor concluded, “I told the girls to have some fun. They put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect. I want them to make mistakes so they can learn from them. I’m not afraid of them making mistakes because they all work so hard and can make up for it. Things seem to be coming together well. Have been focusing on applying pressure on all parts of the field and we have done that in our first 2 matches. Hopefully we can keep it up,”
The Lady Eagles, now 2-0, open Four County Conference play at Union on Friday.
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