By Christopher Shaban
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
LANGDON — With both Fall Mountain and Stevens riding four-game winning streaks and playing before a decent crowd, this was the place to be on Friday night.
The Cardinals pushed in three first-half goals and let the their defense do the talking the rest of the way to stop Fall Mountain and bring the Charity Cup back to Claremont.
After the Wildcats controlled play in the early going, the Cardinals gradually took over as two of the loudest coaches stalked the sidelines barking out instructions for 80 solid minutes on Friday. Once again it was the spark plug substitution of Tori Dalke that seemed to rev up the Cardinal engine as she bought lots of energy to the field. Stella Lavertue would blast a shot that glanced off a Fall Mountain defender to put Stevens on the board at the 25 minutes mark then Maddy Minckler would be in the right spot to put another shot into the net off a similar deflection giving the Cardinals a quick 2-0 lead.
Nevah LeBlanc would spot a great pass onto the head of Dalke that forced Madisyn Wilke to make a grab as the Cardinals were in goal scoring mode. With most of the action in the Fall Mountain side of the pitch, Stevens Aidan Antonivich and Hannah Miller were ball hogs keeping the ball pinned deep in Fall Mountain territory. The half would end with Lavertue blasting a no doubter rocket from 18 yards out to push the Cardinal lead to 3-0.
“We are playing hard and we must do better,” barked Stevens coach Tim St. Pierre at halftime while on the Fall Mountain side Bruce Ferland was telling his team to “just do it.”
During the first 40 minutes, the Cardinals were content to push play on the Kiley Bundy and Isabella Bovell side of the field with runs deep into the corner with crosses aplenty.
“We took what they gave us tonight,” said St. Pierre after the game. “I think we played more of their style and the tempo favored Fall Mountain. We need to correct that going forward.”
With Avery Stewart leading the defense for the Wildcats and shut down the Cardinal attack over the second half, Makenna Grillone would bring some senior leadership front and center for Fall Mountain with runs down the middle of the field only to be met by Antonivich with lots of physical play.
“Makenna is so good, I just tried to body her up and push her toward the sidelines,” said the Stevens sweeper.
Fall Mountain did a good job at gaining more offensive time and in the blink of an eye, a quick strike by Sophia Bruzgis put Fall Mountain on the board with 11 minutes to play. The Cardinal back line took over from here as Zahna Rice, Brynn Murphy, and Miller made life impossible for the Fall Mountain offense.
“We need to get tougher,” Ferland said. “Stevens is as good as we will face in our division and we need 11 players giving 100 percent to get to where we need to be.”
With the win the Cardinals improve to 7-2 in Division II and pushed their winning streak to five games while Fall Mountain stands at 6-4-1 in Division III.
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