2011 State Soccer Tournament Girls 1A Semifinal; Blake vs. Rochester Lourdes
Mall of America Field (Metrodome)
The Blake School 2-0 Rochester Lourdes
The Blake School (20-1-0) was the first team to advance to the 1A Girl’s State High School Championship Final after defeating Rochester Lourdes (18-2-1).
It only took five minutes for Blake to pull ahead after some early offensive exchanges with Rochester. junior Nicole Kozlak whipped in a cross from the right side of the field, “when we’re [at our] best we counter attack quick to the outside and take all the crosses we can get and switch the ball when it’s not there,” explained Coach Paul Menge. Kozlak’s cross found junior Natalie Sill in the box who made use of her height to direct the ball towards the back post for the goal.
While Blake was making use of the flanks Rochester was looking to get the ball to the feet of the team’s leading scorer senior Hannah Anderson and fellow senior Stephanie Helt, but the young Blake back four held the pair to one shot each all game. Lining up on defense Blake started three sophomores and one freshmen, but coach Menge had a lot of faith in the players that earned the team 14 shutouts during the regular season, “we believed in them and they have done phenomenally well.”
Blake has a roster that contains only four seniors (only one of which is a starter) and just under half of the team is a sophomore or younger, but that is a common theme each year for coach Menge. “In a school our size if we’re going to be successful we’re playing people at a young age. People look at our team and say you’re only starting one senior and you have three more on the bench.” Despite the lack of youth of the team there is no real lack of experience. “I thought it was a factor that over half of the team was here last year and a good third of them the year before,” explained coach Menge, “they just came in today settled and talked about it and just ready to play.”
The final goal of the game showed the amount of experience the Blake team possessed when Sill played a through ball to junior Hannah Randolph who did well to stay even with the Rochester defense. Randolph ran onto the ball with just the keeper to beat and calmly slipped into the net for a 2-0 lead with less than three minutes left in the game.
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