MIDDLETOWN — Trailing 4-2 at halftime, the St. Vincent Mustangs reeled off four straight goals to open the second half and then held on to beat the Middletown Mustangs 6-5 in a high-octane non-league varsity girls” soccer game on Monday afternoon in Middletown.
“It was a very exciting game on both sides,” Middletown coach Lee Hoage said. “I”m very proud of my players. There are areas of our game we just need to work on.”
Each of Middletown”s last five losses, counting the regular season and playoffs, have come to St. Vincent.
“We have to get our defense more together,” Hoage said. “We had some breakdowns in the midfield … we weren”t getting enough players back.”
Brittany Cash scored her second goal of the game with seven minutes remaining to cut St. Vincent”s lead to 6-5. Middletown had a handful of opportunities in the closing stages of the match to pull even, but couldn”t do it.
“We put a lot of pressure on them,” Hoage said. “But we missed a couple of shots and their keeper blocked a couple. We had our chances.”
Hannah Diaz, Emily Reed and Tanya Nance also scored for Middletown (3-1). Kelly Wilkinson had three assists.
Middletown appeared to be in good shape going into halftime with a 4-2 lead. St. Vincent had other ideas, however.
“They came out in the second half in a fury,” Hoage said of the Petaluma Mustangs. “There was a lot of good soccer … great skills, shooting and talent,” he added of the two teams.
“If you”re going to lose, you want to go down fighting and we did.”
