Sports
Hassall's Timely Goal Leads Francis Howell Central Girls Past Fort Zumwalt East
Howell Central girls soccer team tops Zumwalt East 1-0.
A late goal from senior Shelly Hassall was enough to give the Francis Howell Central Spartans a 1-0 victory against the in a non-conference contest on Tuesday at Howell Central.
Hassall struck with just three minutes and forty seconds left to play in the contest. Junior Lindsey Leuwirth attempted to feed Hassell the ball on a cross. The ball bounced off of one of a Fort Zumwalt East player and back to Hassell. Just a few yards from the goal, the senior quickly kicked the ball into the net.
“We haven’t scored a goal in three games,” Spartan coach Derek Phillips said after the 1-0 win. “She got on the end of that and put it hard and low and hard and low on this ground is dangerous.”
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The contest was the Spartans’ home opener. The field was soggy because of rain which fell at different times before the contest and after the contest.
The Lions challenged the Spartans in the first half, as they fired off three shots while the Spartans had one.
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“I thought we put some pressure on them early,” Fort Zumwalt East coach Seth Wilber said. “We had two our three real close chances. Our girls just had trouble finishing. It was definitely a good first half for us, we played well and we played compact and put the pressure on them to make mistakes.”
But the Spartans managed to put together a credible attack in the second half, as it fired off five shots to the Lions two.
“It’s the first game we’ve played on grass and the bounce had us thrown a little off,” Wilber said on the second half. “Some stuff was skipping over our feet so we played with our backs to their goal a lot, but I want to give credit to them, they put a ton of pressure on us. Their midfield five shut us down pretty well and their forwards up top pressured us way harder than we pressured them.”
Phillips said that his team established a more credible offensive attack in the second half.
“They had more quality chances in the first half,” Phillips said. “In the second half we maybe switched up a little bit. We had one forward to start the game but we put two forwards up top in the second half. We just wanted to have more pressure around the defenders with missed kicks and clears. I think we established a little bit better possession and covering the field in the second half.”
The Spartans improve to 4-4 with the win. Fort Zumwalt East drops to 3-2.