Saint Thomas Aquinas Girls 2022

Game 12: (11-0-1) 26 April vs. St. James Academy, 1-1 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings PinkOut 2 just might have been a preview of the 5A State Finals as we witnessed a very even match between us and St. James. We now basically sit tied in the EKL race with us holding the edge for the one seed in 5A. Both teams generated very few quality opportunities to score, as it ended up around 3 a piece. The Watts' sisters scored one each to provide the final score.  Lindsey scored mid-first-half when she took a pass going forward that split two defenders before she juked our keeper and passed it into the goal. Sydney scored right out of the half-time break when Jane put a heavy cross to the mid-post area about 18 out. Sydney nicely settled it down and into a game-tying shot. Sydney also came so close to a golden goal off a pass from Cabantac in the first overtime. ( Check it out! ) James seemed to always have a piece of her jersey in hand or were willing to take a yellow to keep...

Game 11: (11-0-0) 26 April vs. BV Southwest at Home, 3-1 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings In a replay of last year's state final, the Saints looked very dominant early, taking an early 2-0 with goals by Watts via perfect Cabantac passes, but a game broke out after the first 20 minutes.  And it was pretty even after that. Southwest got to within 1, 18 minutes into the second half. And it stayed there until about a minute to go when Cara Holton earned us our only corner of the match. Sydney hooked a beautiful service for an Assa's header. Both Ella and Leah had good games wide against some good speed in Southwest's nice, attacking wings. Shannon and Alexis had a couple of good shifts wide as well. St. James downed St. Michael tonight to move to 9-1, to set up quite a showdown here on Friday. It will be senior night, PinkOut 2, with seeding on the line, with EKL on the line. (BV West lost 4-3 to BV Northwest tonight to put St. James and us in a tie for first place in th...

Game 10: (10-0-0) 22 April vs. BV North at Home, 5-2 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings Well, if you were lucky enough to watch this match, you got to watch history.  In 34 seasons of STA girls' soccer, never has a player scored 5 goals in one match (that's called a "glut" if you are wondering) until tonight. Sydney Watts made history! And what's interesting is just how competitive this match was. North lead, 1-0 were tied 2-2. They came within inches of making the score 3-4 at half, as they just missed a goal with 7 seconds left in the half. And Watts' goals were magnificent. She scored on 3 direct kicks, all from roughly 20-some yards—power and placement. She even bent in her 3rd corner of the year, and this one with with her right foot from the left side. Wow. Even the goal she scored off the Cabantac pass was from distance. The Saints had not given up a goal in a month or so, but we are playing without All State Centerback, Assa Kante, but North also ...

Game 9: (9-0-0) 19 April vs. BV Northwest at Home, 2-0 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings Well, the Saints continued their solid play with a 2-0 blanking of the Northwest Huskies.  With Kante on the injury squad, we were not sure how smooth we would be in the back, but Jane Hansen slid into that centerback spot with Sandvig holding down the 6. Things went fine! The Huskies did have a good opportunity in the second half when they hit one off the post, but for the most part the Huskies could not generate much. Sydney continued her torrid pace, adding on two more goals to her stats.  Once again all the suited-up Saints played and played a lot. Morgan Chaput made her varsity debut, as well. Don't look now but Maria Jensen's goals-against is still zero! And, of course, it was cold and rainy. Friday we are back at home against the Mustangs. STATS: First Half: Saints: Shots: 8 (7) Corners: 0 27:53 Watts (dribbles into a shot off the long diagonal, ground through ball...

Game 8: (8-0-0) 12 April vs. St. Teresa's Academy at Home for PinkOut, 3-0 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings Hats off to everyone who worked so hard on decorations, donations, and the beautiful beginning of the ceremony with the personal tribute to Shelly Glasco as part of the prayer, and then that great symbolic ballon release—what a great PinkOut! And Mrs. Gress, of course, was there taking pictures. And whoever called "tails" and got us the wind first half deserves, perhaps, a goal or two. The girls certainly took advantage of the wind to just dominate the first half where we scored 3, maybe 4, goals. And it was only fitting that Rylance and Payne got the post-game interview as both had tremendous matches.  Maggie made two spectacular saves with Rylance and her fellow defenders playing tough all night—shuting out St. Teresa's the half that they had the wind. ( Payne 1 )( Payne 2 ) Teresa's was dangerous in the second half, so for us to get that shutout is...

Game 7: (7-0-0) 8 April vs. Bishop Carroll at Bishop Carroll, 2-0 Girls' Season Stats   EKL Standings Alert: it still does not feel like Spring. In this rematch of last year's semi-finals, the Saints prevailed 2-0, but it was not an offensive explosion by either side. It seemed a little bit like the Mo-Kan finals against SM East, but the 20-mile-an-hour plus wind probably had a lot to do with it. And the narrowness of that Carroll field does take away from some of the things we like to do offensively. Carroll will be up for the worst streaming experience award at the end of the year, however. For all of the 17 viewers, we mostly watched a lot of spinning from the buffer zone. But we did come away with the awareness of the very close match and our quality possession skills. And we can watch it after the fact with no buffering. Check it out! Saints gave Carroll their second loss, as they had fallen to a 5-And-0 Maize team, in overtime, earlier in the week.  The early favori...

Game 6: (6-0-0) 5 April vs. De Soto, 6-0 Girls' Season Stats Wow, major renovations have taken place at De Soto High School. What a noteworthy facility. The soccer field is state of the art. The second half of the match tonight—the one when we played with the wind, the girls really moved the ball well. It was fun to watch. The first 10 minutes or so or the second half ended any thought of a competitive match as the girls put in 4 goals, three in the first 3 minutes. We got to witness, yet, another hat trick from Sydney. We got to see Anisten's first varsity goal (trust me—there will be a lot more). Assa even got to play a bit at the 9, where she promptly finished a nice through ball low, hard and to the corner. Now, in the first half De Soto had the very strong wind, and honestly, it was a bit of a match.  Maggie got one late in the half to give the Saints a 1-0 halftime lead, but the Wildcats had 4 shots, 3 on goal and a couple of corners, and a little bit of p...

Game 5: The Bob Durig Mo-Kan Finals (5-0-0) 1 April vs. SM East, 1-0 Girls' Season Stats This one lived up to the Championship billing as it was a highly contested, close match in which the Saints survived 1-0.  Marn found Watts early on, 6 minutes in, to stake us to the lead and the final score. There was a notable physicality to the match that required some tough play from many of the Saints. Assa was noteworthy in the back, stopping numerous attacks; Watts dropped to midfield for a lot of the match where she distinguished herself defensively as well. Cabantac and Rylance also had some tough, tough tackles.  Payne had to make an early save or the match would have been knotted at one—just some quick hands. Take a look! The Shots on Goal for the match were 7-5 us; that was a pretty good measure of the intensity and closeness of the match.  Generally playing the night before Prom does not bring out the best performances from the upper class, but we did have some ...