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Mooney Cards control and advance
Girard
Without leggings, sleeves or gloves — Mooney’s Taylor Sikich was dressed more for a late summer soccer game than one in the mid 30’s.
For her, it’s all fine and dandy, and not just because the Cardinals won 3-1.
“I like it better like this,” she said. “Once you start running a little bit, you get used to it. It all works out.”
That’s also what she got from the Poland Bulldogs for 80 minutes — a workout.
In a physical game that had to be moved to Girard’s Arrowhead Stadium because of unfavorable conditions at the Cardinals’ home field, coach Frank Sikich wanted his girls to treat it like their own.
“We had to control midfield,” he said. “That’s something we focused on halftime. We worked on controlling it more and I’m very pleased that we came out and successfully did that.”
Mostly because the Bulldogs and Cardinals shared it for the first half.
Within 10 minutes of the game’s start, Julianna Vazquez got Mooney on the board after a shredding crossover that gave her an open target. Mooney had already fired two solid shots before the first goal.
“When I’m doing my moves, it just happens,” Vazquez said. “It comes naturally to me. I just happened to finish on that one.”
Poland had many opportunities to put one away in the first half, taking eight shots. It lead in possession for the better part of the final 20 minutes of the half, too.
At this point, Frank Sikich nearly lost his voice encouraging his girls to pick up the pressure and attack.
Well, it worked because the Cardinals responded.
After a battle for a loose ball eight minutes into the second half, Taylor Sikich, the coach’s daughter, earned a free kick 40 yards out. She lifted the ball over a wide wall of defenders inside the goal box and right to Amy Vinopal who drilled it past goaltender Abbie Frank.
Twelve minutes later, Vazquez juked a pair of Bulldog defenders on the outside before pushing the ball up to what looked like 10 yards of clear field.
“I ran up looking to take it myself,” Vazquez said. “Then, I heard Amy call me and I saw that open space. She’s fast enough to get to the ball and I know she can finish.”
Vinopal did for her second goal of the game and a 3-0 Mooney lead.
Work was still left to be done, though. As Frank Sikich put it, “Poland is a very good team that can strike at any moment.”
Senior standout Erin Gabriel did strike and delivered a shot to back of the net, just 17 seconds later.
“Even with three goals, we weren’t going to look to only attack and leave the defense on their own,” Vinopal said. “We wanted to drop back, pass it to the corners and knock a little time off the clock. That’s what you have to do to hold on to win.”
Poland finished the year at 12-6 and coach John Cavalier saluted his 10 seniors for getting them to the district semifinal.
“We had some lapses and didn’t get back and that was the difference in this game,” he said. “We gave them too many chances and you can’t do that against Mooney.”