Player of the Game...the GOALPOST

After 98 minutes of soccer Freshman Devinne Bahr finished a scramble ball in the box off a beautiful corner kick by Keli Muchowski to sneak a victory past the visiting Fondy Cardinals.

The game was intense with Fon Du Lac scoring twice, early, off a bicycle kick and penalty kick respectively. But our Rockets didn't let down, with strong aggressive play from sophomore Zoe Esslinger and strong possessive play from senior captain Michelle Jenkins the Rockets dominated the remainder of the first half and fought back to tie 2-2 at half-time. Our first score came from a set-play ball sent in by Michelle and was finished nicely by sophomore Vienna Behnke. Shortly after the Rockets possessed the ball up from the defensive back on the right side of the field connected with our midfield who then played a beautiful ball to our outside runner, Zoe who took Fondy's last defender 1v1 and finished a well-struck ball in the far corner. Both fantastic plays starting with an confident and controlled attack from our defensive backs. I'd be kidding us all if I said the rest of the game carried such poise and excitement in the Rockets behalf. Neenah started the second half decent, possessing the ball through the mid-fielders but could never connect to other runners or even worse of to our left side of the field. I'm not exaggerating when I say 90% of our play in the second half was on the right side of the field in the middle third. The Cardinals capitalized on our lack of control and pace putting more pressure on our defensive line. After 10 minutes in of ineffective play the Rockets showed signs of hope with a possession sending our outside backs and wings through to the top of the box but poor decision making led to wasted scoring opportunities. The second half proved to be quite frustrating for the Rockets, players and staff and though Fon Du Lac didn't give us too much of a scare it was disappointing to not have taken the momentum from the first half and capitalized in the second.

Now we head to overtime and our never-ending story of being consistently INCONSISTENT continues. An issue we as a team need to address and solve quickly if we want to continue to be successful throughout the season. Though it looked as though Neenah was going to take quick control in the first 10 minute overtime our girls continued to have mental breakdo wns and gave up the ball in the middle third of the field. We lost our defensive shape and our most important asset, our communication. Fon du Lac again took advantage and pressed their attack leaving our keeper in three separate 1v1 situations to goal. Fortunately Mary Beth was focused and ready to step up as she made two phenomenal saves in the closing minutes of the first overtime. Fon Du Lacs third attempt ricocheted hard of the far post - another lu cky break for our Rockets. With two-minutes remaining the Fon Du Lac goal keeper went down with an injury causing C oach Winkler to send in his back-up keeper heading into the second overtime.

The second overtime was similar to the first, I wish I could say Neenah came out ready to dominate but for some reason we couldn't get our defensive and midfield lines to connect without losing possession immediately. Our few opportunities were left with wasted crosses or weak shots right to the keeper. There was a possession which could have proved to be a beauty, Michelle Jenkins connected with Zoe Esslinger up top who laid off a perfect ball to Vienna at the top of the box, unfortunately we couldn't capitalize and got caught on our heels as we watched Fondy on another 1v1 counter attack with our keeper. Junior captain Mary Beth Spoehr literally saved us a few more times before our Rockets won a corner kick on the right side with a little less than 2 minutes remaining. Keli Muchowski sent in a fabulous ball, senior Whitney Heemstra and sophomore Vienna Behnke each got a head on it but it was freshman Devinne Behnke who 'cleaned up the garbage' and put the ball away to seal the win for the Rockets.

Though elated to have another tally in the Win column in this tough FVA conference the coaching staff recognizes we have a lot of work ahead of us as we start getting into our busy part of the schedule. Our focus is to start putting all the pieces together and playing a complete game - consistently and effectively. We hope to see progress as we enter our third conference match away versus Oshkosh West on Tuesday, April 21 at Titan Stadium. Hope to see you there!