Stepping onto the turf at Stadium by the Sea last Friday must have felt a little strange for Palisades High girls varsity soccer players. Sure, they practice on the field regularly, but they hadn’t played a game there in what seemed like forever – 49 days to be exact.
Once the whistle blew, though, they looked right at home and dominated the full 80 minutes in a 6-0 victory over Fairfax.
Emily Hardwick gave the Dolphins a quick 1-0 lead, Kaitlyn Parcell doubled it on a partial breakaway and Caitlin Bremner’s laser from the top of the box made it 3-0 at halftime.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
Ten minutes into the second half Zoe Capanna crossed to Erin Ross, who one-timed it into the net from five yards out. Parcell scored her second goal on a low line drive in the 64th minute and Hardwick tallied her second goal off a feed from Ross with 12 minutes left. Lauryn Wilson nearly made it 7-0, hitting the crossbar from 25 yards away just inside the eight-minute mark.
“Zoe did all the work on my goal… she gave me a perfect ball right on my foot,” said Ross, a sophomore who played JV last year and is also on the Westside Breakers’ Flight 1 U16 club squad with Dolphins teammate Sydney Brecher. “We’re a passing team and we’ve been playing on really bad fields but those games helped us with little things like finishing and through balls.”
Hardwick started the season on defense but the Fairfax game was her fifth straight at forward and she has flourished in her new position.
“We’re really starting to connect and gel as a team,” she said after scoring one of the Dolphins’ three goals in last Wednesday’s victory at Venice. “The [grass] field slowed us down. We weren’t controlling the ball as well and we were missing our targets on shots.”
Evelina Van Norden and Hannah De Silva also scored against the Gondos while Parcell and Elizabeth Seaman netted the goals in Monday’s 2-0 home win against University which upped Palisades’ record to 9-3 overall, 7-0 in league. The Dolphins were scheduled to play Hamilton yesterday and host Westchester at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow.
BOYS
After Ben Sack scored three goals and Tyler Newman, Barron Chavez and Joob Sanchez each added one in last Wednesday’s 6-0 shutout of Venice, the Dolphins’ offense was stymied two days later in a 2-0 setback at Fairfax, which had edged Palisades 2-1 in the first round of Western League play.
The Dolphins responded Monday with one of their nest efforts of the season, blanking host University 3-0 on a first-half goal by Sack (assisted by Lucas Wetherby-Jonsson) and second-half goals from Newman and Sanchez.
“We played with good intensity,” PaliHi head coach Dave Suarez said, referring to the much-needed win against the Wildcats that kept his team in contention for the league title at 5-3-1 overall, 5-2 in league heading into yesterday’s game at Hamilton.
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