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March 9, 2002

The United Quest 88 White team started their Spring 2002 campaign with an offensive display unseen for quite a few games. The girls notched not one, not two, but three unanswered goals on their way to a 3-0 victory against an admittedly less-experienced, less-skilled WGSA Herricanes team that has just made the move up to "B" level Athena play this season.

After seeing their first two league matches of 2002 rained out, the Quest players seemed ready to get their season underway from the opening whistle. The match was barely 10 minutes old when right forward Kim Shriver delivered a well-placed cross directly into the path of the diagonal run of Amanda Masters on the left side who promptly beat the keeper with a nice shot into the corner of the net. Although the Quest girls continued to have the run of play in their favor early, the Herricanes proved to be a scrappy squad whose individual players beat Quest players to quite a few 50/50 balls. Unfortunately for the host team, the Quest defense was in a stingy mood and turned away all of the early offensive runs by the Herricanes with relative ease. As was the case in an earlier warm-up tournament, sweeper Carolyn Craddock, along with a revolving combination of outside backs that included Estela Negron-Flores, Alena Reich, Meagan Dilbeck, Jasmine Noel, Lauren Dodd, and Meagan Wood, displayed great defensive poise and rugged determination against all attacks. Just after the midway point of the first half, after one such Herricane attack had been thwarted, a long clearing pass was redirected to the feet of midfielder Ali Schultz who dribbled around two defenders to unleash a beautiful 25 yard strike that rippled the back of the net. United Quest were up 2-0. After the ensuing kick-off the two teams traded possession several times before Carolyn Craddock dribbled up from the back, through several defenders, and beat the keeper with a hard, well-directed shot. The score stood at 3-0 and stayed that way until the halftime whistle. The Quest girls had put a half dozen quality shots on goal, and had scored on each of their three best chances. Hopefully, this was a preview of things to come this season.

The second half saw a dominant Quest side move the ball with relative ease through all parts of the field, but as soccer goes sometimes, quality looks at the goal were fewer in quantity than during the first half. Several shot attempts were tantalizingly close, but the story of the second half would predominantly belong to the Quest defense. As has been the case many times in past matches, keeper Ana Trujillo came up big in several one-on-one situations after the ball had popped through the mostly solid United back three. She stifled two outright breakaways to help preserve a clean sheet. Heather Dougherty, Kylie Foley, and City Poirier consistently harassed the Herricane forwards and midfielders into bad passes and other miscues to help start Quest attacks that were aided by good overlapping runs out of the midfield by Madison Porter and Sierra Green. Alena Reich recognized defensive breakdowns on two separate occasions and provided excellent supporting defense to stop Herricane thrusts on the United goal. Toward the end of the second half it was evident that game conditioning was a factor for both sides, and the teams seemed satisfied at the final whistle to shake hands and head for home. The Quest girls had every reason to be encouraged by this excellent beginning game of Spring 2002.