Lady Pirates fight Park to scoreless draw
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LIVINGSTON — On the heels of a one-sided defeat against Belgrade, the Lady Pirates battled Park to a 0-0 draw to salvage a tie on a two-game road trip where they didn’t score a goal.
“It was a battle outright, it was a really good game,” Polson coach Michael Hewston said. “The defensive effort was amazing.”
The game couldn’t have been more evenly matched, Hewston said. Park finished with nine shots, compared to Polson’s eight.
Though happy with the tie, Hewston said the Lady Pirates had three great opportunities to walk away with a W. None better than a breakaway chance in the first half. The Park goalkeeper came out and took out a charging Laura Rost near the 18-yard line, but the ball remained in play. A Lady Pirate got to the ball – Hewston couldn’t remember which one, but missed the empty net, pulling the shot wide.
The game was played in the center of the field and Hewston said defenders Katie Finley and Rainee Vassar did a great job in pushing the Park attackers to the outside.
The game was just a day after a 6-0 loss to Belgrade, and for the second time this season the Lady Pirates proved that they could put a loss behind them and just focus on the game at hand. After starting the season with a 5-0 loss to Hamilton, the Lady Pirates came back and crushed Corvallis 7-0.
“The thing this team does not do is drop their heads. They really focus on being a good team. They focus on getting a win. They focus on playing the game the right way.” Hewston said. “They don’t dwell on the loss; they learn from their mistakes and move on.”
Against Belgrade Friday, Hewston said that the Lady Pirates did a good job in shutting down Annie Prickett and Shelby Erdahl, two of the state’s top 10 scorers, in the first half and only went into the break trailing 2-0. In the second half, Molly Ricketts, a senior defender, went down and Polson had to switch their defense around. The veteran Belgrade team took advantage of this and scored four goals in the second half for the 6-0 win.
“It could’ve been a different story if we were 100 percent healthy,” Hewston said.
The Lady Pirates (1-3) will start their conference schedule by hosting Libby Thursday at 4 p.m. They travel to Whitefish Saturday for another conference game.
Summary
Belgrade 6, Polson 0
Polson 0 0–0
Belgrade 2 4–6
Polson 0, Park 0
Polson 0 0–0
Park 0 0–0
