Top team runs riot at ECNL Seattle Day 3

Top team runs riot at ECNL Seattle Day 3
by Will Parchman & Liviu Bird
June 27, 2015

REDMOND, Washington — Mallory Pugh is arguably the highest profile player at the ECNL Playoffs here this week. She’s certainly on the shortlist of its most talented. At 16, she was one of the youngest players ever named to a U.S. U20 Women’s World Cup roster, and she even got some minutes during the U.S.’s run to the knockouts last summer.

But don’t discount the 2016 UCLA(w) commit’s team, either. The Real Colorado U17s are clearly just getting revved up.

Real Colorado opened its jaunt in Redmond with a breezy and goal-bound 7-3 victory over Sporting Blue Valley on a searing hot afternoon under soaring blue skies. While Pugh exacted her typical venom on the match, her teammates picked up the slack when her slaloming runs weren’t finding their target. By just 15 minutes after the whistle for the second half had blown, Real Colorado held a 4-1 lead without needing Pugh to score a goal.

Saturday marked the beginning of play for U15, U16 and U17 teams in the ECNL Champions League, which will dump out into the ECNL Finals in Richmond, Virginia in July. Saturday was the beginning of that postseason journey, and nobody’s  hopes are higher than this Real Colorado U17 crew. As a U16 group last year, this team easily won its group in Seattle but faltered in Richmond with two losses in four matches.

At least on an attacking front, it would seem vengeance is within their grasp. Real Colorado ripped apart a quality Sporting Blue Valley defense that barely gave up a goal per game in the regular season. But it took a spur in the side to get them into galloping position.

Despite negotiating an attacking onslaught from the start, Sporting Blue Valley scored first. A dire mistake at the back from Real Colorado allowed Morgan Hensley to pounce on a loose ball and slot it home for a shock 1-0 lead. Although it didn’t last long. About halfway through the first half, Pugh was moved back into the midfield for Tatum Barton, who assumed the center forward position. Barton scored off a lovely chip to tie the game, and Real Colorado took a 2-1 lead just before half off a Kylee Duren header it never relinquished.

The hits kept coming in the second half. A goal from Alexa Groesser and a second from Barton staked Real Colorado to a cushy 4-1 lead, which only grew as it cemented the three points.

De Anza Force 3-0 Penn Fusion U16
This particular De Anza Force team is to be feared. There are an uncommon number of top players already committed to some of the nation’s top college programs, Stanford(w) and California(w) among them. More importantly, this team has been through the ECNL fire together already at earlier age groups, and it’s clearly among the most cohesive units in the league. It showed on Saturday.

WNT-connected players Kayla Fong, Sam Tran and Tierna Davidson all scored goals for De Anza en route to a win over a solid team that they made look far easier than it was. The game was a matchup between two of the finest central creators in the U.S. Youth National Team system in De Anza’s Luca Deza (Cal, 2017) and Penn Fusion’s Rachael Dorwart (North Carolina(w), 2018). While neither had a bad game, Deza’s quality day was largely outshined by Davidson, who put in a player of the match performance, not only because she scored but also because of the job she did on Dorwart.

Dorwart is a tricky attacking midfielder who can also play up top as a shadow striker (or even as a lone forward), and she’s unquestionably one of the top three players in the 2018 class. It’s no fluke that she’s headed to UNC in three years as that recruiting class’s lynchpin. That said, Davidson had Dorwart in her pocket all morning. The Stanford-committed Davidson was all over Dorwart and hardly allowed her an ounce of breathing room.

De Anza’s fluid style of play and intricate build-ups paved the way for all three of its goals. Fong’s opener came off a lovely one-two off a cross, Tran’s tally on a low-roller just five minutes later was only created off a nice through ball and Davidson’s finisher was a beautifully-taken left-footed blast into the far right corner.

Sockers FC 2-0 Bethesda SC U16
In the opening five minutes against Bethesda, Sockers FC’s Emma Thomson had a penalty blocked off the line. About 10 minutes later, she atoned for her mistake by curling a free kick inside the near post to set Sockers off on a jaunt to an impressive shutout and a full three points.

Thomson, a 2017 Penn State(w) commit and the No. 14 player in the class, pushed in the team’s first goal to set it on course for a win in its first match in Seattle. The free kick, set off to the left side of the net, beat a resolute keeper who was having an otherwise outstanding day. It snuck just inside the near post and set the team off in good stead.

Bethesda kept pushing, largely behind the attacking ideas of past TDS Academy Player of the Week Cameron Murtha, but it couldn’t find the breakthrough against a rugged Bethesda back line.

Real Colorado 5-2 Dallas Texans U15
Dallas began the game with more possession and sustained attack, but it conceded twice on early defensive mistakes and couldn’t recover. Sophia Silva-Trevino scored her first of two goals for Dallas in the second minute, but Haley Archuleta put away the first of a hat trick just two minutes later to equalize.

Colorado’s first goal came after Dallas goalkeeper Averi Isaacs failed to hold a long shot from Sophia Smith, spilling it right onto Archuleta’s foot at the far post. In the 12th minute, a bouncing ball in the box gave Archuleta a second as she pounced on the knockdown.
Slowly, Colorado took over the game by winning the midfield battle. It crowded out the central channel, and Dallas couldn’t get through despite repeated efforts to move the ball through the area.

Archuleta completed her natural hat trick just after halftime, again taking advantage of a rebound, this time from Jaelin Howell’s long shot. Again, it came against the run of play, as Dallas came out energized in the second half.

The Texans drew within a goal for the final time on a glancing header from Silva-Trevino off Tameir Grosevnor’s cross after a poorly cleared corner kick in the 51st minute. Colorado scored twice in two minutes to seal the result in the 65th and 66th minutes, the second coming through a stunning individual effort from Smith.

She won the ball directly off Dallas’ kickoff, dribbling through the entire left side of the defense before depositing her shot neatly inside the far post.

Concorde Fire 2-0 McLean U17
Concorde came out flying at the first whistle and avoided the drop-off in energy that most teams suffer after the initial adrenaline wears off, winning comfortably if not by a large margin. The Fire’s high-energy, high-pressure style created a goal within three minutes, as Katie MacGinnitie ran onto a through ball from Gabriela Rivera and finished.

MacGinnitie had several other opportunities to score, eventually putting away a second with a quarter-hour remaining in the game. This time it was Lily Ammon’s pass from the left flank, again slipped through McLean’s back line, that allowed MacGinnitie to finish into the roof of the net.
An interesting battle ensued between MacGinnitie and goalkeeper Jaclyn Katalinas, who matched her opponent’s efforts on more than one occasion. She tipped an overhead shot off the crossbar in the 33rd minute and dove to her left to keep MacGinnitie out just before halftime again.

Only once Katalinas left the game for the second half did the Georgia-committed forward score her second of the game. McLean’s best chance to score came in the 81st minute, but Mikayla Krzeczowski came off her line well to collect a free kick from her right side and keep her shutout intact to the final whistle.

Michigan Hawks 1-6 Concorde Fire U16
The score really wouldn’t seem to indicate it, but Michigan controlled much of this game. Nonetheless, it was 5-0 at halftime in favor of the opposition, with Concorde taking advantage of every chance it got in the attacking third.

Five different players scored for Concorde, and the Hawks unwittingly helped by putting one in their own net. Brooke DeSantis started the scoring two minutes in, and Taylor Anderson added a second just five minutes later. Three goals in a nine-minute span, including the own goal, made it a handful just before halftime.

Michigan scored first in the second half, Jillian Winarski putting home a rebound after goalkeeper Ashley Orkus came up with a good one-on-one save on Megan Young’s initial effort in the 56th minute.

Perhaps energized by the goal, although they had been in the attacking half fairly often up to that point anyway, the Hawks kept more possession and stayed on the attack for much of the game.

Sarah Eskew finally killed off the game in the 75th minute with a long shot from outside the penalty area on the left. Her superb shot personified Concorde’s attack throughout the game: efficient, clinical and turning most of its touches inside the attacking third into goals.

Related Topics: ECNL
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