Northland Pines Girls Soccer Slips Past Three Lakes

This game felt more like an organized scrimmage and practice with another team.  We have had an outside practice on a full soccer field this season.  We just came off spring break having the girls returning Tuesday for 3 days of practice before we had Friday night’s game.  Then Mother Nature stepped in and took away practice from the girls Wednesday, so only had two nights to prepare for the game.  Mother Nature also recent snow storms have made it so that our home field is not ready to be played on.  As a result, we have a very generous neighboring community, school district, and opponent soccer coach who opened up their door and field allowing us to play our game down on Mike Webster Stadium turf field in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.   We have 20 girls ready to face Three Lakes for both team’s first varsity game.  There was a great deal of players being moved around new positions played all trying to find solid combinations for the whole season.  We were looking for someone that could replace senior center midfielder Cassidy Sternhagen.  We knew her physicality, aggressiveness and ability to distribute the ball would be tough to replace so there would be a great deal of trial and error done in this game.  We ran a 4-1-4-1 formation and possessed the ball most of the game.  We played very rigid and there were many girls logging their first minutes at the varsity level.  Half way into the first half Emma Weber drove the ball into the goal mouth off of a corner kick and an aggressive Ava Gaetano scored her first varsity goal putting Pines up 1-0 at half.  At half, it was like a classroom and a great deal of teaching between the two coaches and also a former Pines player and volunteer coach.  We came out with more urgency and put many more shots on the net.  Three Lakes made about 4-5 really great saves to keep them in the game.  Midway in the second half our center back stepped up with the ball and made a pass the rest of the defenders were ball-watching, and a Three Lakes defender stepped in and intercepted an errant pass from Pines which played the ball behind our defenders and Three Lakes forward raced with the ball putting their only shoot into the bread basket of sophomore goalie Samantha Nampel who made the game and sealed the first victory of the season against a regional opponent.

Score PInes 1 Three Lakes 0

Shot for Pines 28 Three Lakes 1

Shots on Goal Pines 18 Three Lakes 1

Saves for Pines Isabella Chuckel 0, Samantha Nampel 1 Three Lakes 17

Corner Kickes Pines 12 Three Lakes 0