Girard can’t hold down dangerous Dragons
Trending
GIRARD -- Although it was too late to stop Niles from winning another Northeast 8 Conference (NE8) title, Girard gave the Red Dragons one of their closest matches of the year Thursday.
Weeks after suffering an eight-goal loss in Niles, Girard made the high-powered Dragons work to remain perfect on the season, as the Indians allowed just one late first-half goal in a 4-0 loss Thursday at Arrowhead Stadium.
"I feel like even though we took a loss today, it’s an accomplishment against a superstar team, to be honest with you," Girard head coach Angelo LoCastro said. "Scott [MacMillan]’s team is fantastic. They move the ball quickly. They don’t stop for one second. And we did everything we needed to, to kind of shut down some key players to kind of help and contain them. We just couldn’t get the ball past where we needed to for the offense. But we accomplished our goal, which was to keep the scoring low."
Coming into Thursday's match, the Dragons had no issues scoring, evident by the 8-0 win vs. Girard two weeks earlier, as well as their eight-goal-per-game average and seven-goal average margin of victory. However, the Indians' defense made it as difficult as they could.
For much of the first 15 minutes, Niles dominated possession of the ball but failed to earn many shots on goal. Instead, the Dragons routinely settled for lobbing the ball ahead, only for it to be intercepted by a defender or Indians goalkeeper Raegan Noel.
"Very lackadaisical," MacMillan said. "There was no urgency, no team idea of what we worked on. They didn’t implement what we worked on at all. The practice turned into what I could do, not what we could do. And we’re gonna fix it, believe me."
Senior captain Madelyn Yost created the first legitimate scoring chance in the 15th minute, when she dribbled the ball up the left side of the field and tried to find the far corner of the net. Yost's shot slid a few inches wide, though, and bounced off the post. Raleigha Burney's chance at the rebound also proved unsuccessful, with her shot sailing wide right.
More than 30 minutes through the first half, Yost created another opportunity when she made a run down the right side of the pitch. Her shot, however, went high and above the crossbar for a goal kick. Yost similarly lifted a free kick with 3:20 to go over the bar.
Despite their near-misses throughout the half, the Dragons would not be denied for the entire 40 minutes, as Taylor Bickerstaff found the back of the net with 53 seconds remaining. Bickerstaff, who had a few moments to settle the ball at her feet, scored from long range and sent the game to halftime with Niles ahead 1-0.
"The physicality we bring is tremendous," LoCastro said. "We worked on 'don’t stab,' 'don’t let them get in front of you,' 'don’t get them pushed into the middle,' 'keep everybody to the outside.' We had two, three key players staying on their best players who are super-speedy, and it helped kind of messed up their play action a little bit. So that was our focus in making sure we could contain them."
The Dragons' attack yielded greater results in the second half.
Not long after Bickerstaff's free kick five minutes in went high, Kherington Stanford doubled the Dragons' lead with her left foot. Bickerstaff then widened the advantage in the 53rd minute with her right foot, scoring her second and Niles' third goal of the match.
Matching Bickerstaff's total with 9:28 remaining, Stanford jostled for position and cashed on a one-on-one with Noel to put the Dragons up 4-0.
"We didn’t play well. It was bad," MacMillan said. "We did not play as a team like we can tonight, and it showed. [Girard was] scrappy. They wanted it. They came out first half, pressed us, played high pressure, did what it took to keep us out of the goal. ... When you have 20-some shots on goal, and you can’t finish, there’s a serious efficiency issue. But I commend [Girard]. They gave it to us. But we have some work to do, and we have to fix it."
With the win, Niles improved to 12-0 on the season and 10-0 in the NE8. Thursday's victory also clinched another outright league title and extended the Dragons' regular-season unbeaten streak to 40 matches and their conference unbeaten streak to 31.
The last time Niles did not win an NE8 match was last September, when the Dragons and Girard drew 1-1. Their most recent regular-season loss was a 3-2 defeat to Boardman on Sept. 7, 2024. A few days earlier, Niles lost 5-3 to Poland, which remains the Dragons' last NE8 defeat.
Niles hosts Beaver Local on Saturday before finishing up league play next week at Lakeview and vs. Struthers.
"For Saturday, all I can do is analyze, send film and tell them what they have to do. And hopefully they come together like they know they can," MacMillan said. "You don’t get this far being undefeated and have this many shutouts without knowing what to do. We just have to try to reinvent ourselves and make sure we focus on what we do well. It takes a team. Whoever made that slogan up, 'There’s no 'I' in team,' they got it. There’s no 'I' in team."
Girard slipped to 5-6-3 overall and 4-4-2 in conference play with Thursday's loss. The Indians play their penultimate NE8 match on Monday vs. Hubbard before the league finale at Poland on Wednesday.
"Today’s game proved to my girls that sometimes, you play these strong teams like the Niles, the Poland and the Hubbard teams, you come in with the mindset, 'Can we beat these girls?'" LoCastro said. "And today, we proved we can hold a superstar team down, and if we bring that same intensity and grit to Hubbard and Poland, we have a great shot at winning the game."