KELSEYVILLE — Ellary Isherwood scored goals in each half while senior teammates Paige Astley and Georgia Guerrero connected in the second half as the Middletown High School girls soccer team blanked the Kelseyville Knights 4-0 in North Central League I action Tuesday afternoon in Kelseyville.
Middletown (9-1-1 league, 10-2-1 overall) has three league games remaining before the North Coast Section Division 1 playoffs open early next month. The Mustangs are home Thursday against Cloverdale, on the road Oct. 19 at Willits, and home Oct. 21 against Roseland University Prep.
Isherwood scored the only goal of the first half as Middletown took a 1-0 lead into halftime. While the Mustangs put a fair amount of pressure on Kelseyville’s defense, the Knights reciprocated with a pretty good attack of their own that kept Middletown freshman keeper Krystal Ocken plenty busy.
It was a completely different story in the second half when Ocken didn’t have much to do thanks to the play of the Middletown midfield and back line, which did a good job pushing the ball forward. As a result, the Mustangs spent nearly all of the final 40 minutes on Kelseyville’s side of the field attacking the net.
“I told them ‘don’t settle, just keep going and just have fun with it,’” Middletown head coach Ashley Hart said when asked about the advice she gave her players at halftime.
Astley’s goal early in the second half pushed the Middletown lead to 2-0 and Guerrero scored a short time later to make it 3-0. Isherwood’s second goal, assisted by Astley, put the game out of reach, at which point the Mustangs were happy to kill as much time as they could owing to an injury to standout defender Zamora Rogers. The senior midfielder hurt her ankle and knee during a hard collision with a Kelseyville player, forcing her from the game.
“That’s the second defender I’ve lost in the last two games,” Hart said. “At that point I just wanted to get out of there without any other injuries.”
Calista Hoskins left Middletown’s 2-2 tie against St. Helena last week with a knee injury. Hart said she doesn’t know if she’ll have either player back in time for Thursday’s home game against Cloverdale.
“I’ll find out the results of Zamora’s X-ray tomorrow (Wednesday) and a I won’t know about Calista until Thursday morning,” Hart said. “I don’t like not knowing.”
Hart had high praise for her defense, especially minus starters Rogers and Hoskins.
“The defense was so solid, just a great effort,” Hart said.
Among the defensive standouts pm Tuesday were Alex Imbrunetti and Kamilah Chairez.
“They really shined,” Hart said. “Alex had a real positive attitude and kept the team up.”
