Woodbury Advances with Strong Second Half

Woodbury 5-0 Lakeville North

First seed Woodbury (19-0-1) faced the 1AA section champions Lakeville North (12-5-3) in the second game Thursday night at Park High School. While Lakeville North was making their first appearance at the State tournament, Woodbury was trying to defend their State Champion title and make this year’s their 6^th in 11 years.

The first half set the tone for the rest of the game as Woodbury began to take control and sent players forward into the attack. Despite a consistent attack from Woodbury, Lakeville North’s defense did not give up a goal until late in the first half. Royal’s forward Alyssa DuVal took the ball to the goal line inside the 18 with a defender on her hip and sent a cross to Rachael VanKeulen who put the ball into the side the goal.

Lakeville North generated little attack in the first half. Freshman midfielder Simone Kolander proved to be a  threat by making two strong runs with the ball at the Woodbury backline, but was stopped both times before she could make something happen.

In the second half, Woodbury’s attack really started to come to life. 6 minutes into the half defender Kassey Kallman slotted a pass to midfielder Emily Erickson at the top left corner of the penalty box. Erickson fired a shot far post. Lakeville North’s goalie Lindsey Dragan dove to get a touch on it, but could not keep the ball out of the goal.

After hinting with some dangerous free kicks in the first half, Woodbury proved their dead ball ability off of a corner kick. In the 31^st minute of the second half, Kallman earned her second assist sending the ball in from the right side to midfielder Caitlin Graboski at the far post. Graboski buried the header into the back of the net without contest.

Woodbury’s forth goal came with 6 minutes left in the game. Defender Amber Warzala found forward Jessica Taplin at the top of the box. Taplin one-timed the ball into the lower left corner of the goal past the diving Lakeville goalie for Taplin’s first goal of the year.

In the final minute of play Woodbury scored their fifth and final goal of the game. The goal was nearly a mirror image of their third goal as Kallman sent a corner kick from the right side to the far post where midfielder Taylor Moquist headed the ball into the net. This goal provided Kallman with her third assist of the game. Kallman had two assists from a dead ball situation and stated how important they were to their attack, “We started working them early in the year and were successful. We hit a slump later, but have started to get [goals] again.”