Game 5 - Manual

PEKIN -- Playing at times through heavy rains, Pekin stormed out to an early lead and never looked back in a 7-0 Mid-State 6 Conference girls' soccer victory over Peoria Manual Tuesday at Coal Miners Park. Tory Udry started the scoring just four minutes into the match for Pekin (2-3, 2-2), while Christy Gray and Bridgette Feeney each found the goal in the next two minutes. Later in the half, Ashley Snider and Stephanie Sheffler scored their first goals of the season to give the Dragons a 5-0 halftime lead. Udry scored again four minutes into the second half. Tiffany Tebben closed out the scoring in the 68th minute. The Pekin defense was aggressive and strong, allowing just one shot on goal. "What I enjoyed most about the win was that the girls really made a conscious effort to look for and make the simple pass," Pekin head coach Edgar Sandoval said. "We still have a ways to go with that, but I think they started to get a good feel for working it around, finding the openings and not forcing it.'' Manual was only able to bring 10 players so before the game Pekin volunteered to play 10 on a side. The game was called with a few minutes to go when sirens went off. Pekin visits Woodruff at 4:30 p.m. in another Mid-State 6 Conference match. The Dragons have also added Peoria Christian to their schedule for a 4:30 p.m. May 10 contest at Coal Miners Park and have a potential game at Geneseo in the works for May 1

Before this season, we had never lost to Manual and I was hopeful it wouldn't happen on my watch either. There was reason for optimism up there. Their coach played club soccer for Bradley and was from Naperville where there is a great soccer tradition. But my girls put the fears to rest early and often.

We won 7-0, but there was an unfortunate confrontation between me and their coach after the game. On one play, one of our players had the ball in the center of the field near the top of their penalty box. All week we had been working on taking the ball to the corner then passing it in, so in the midst of what was essentially a breakaway, she dribbled to the corner instead and crossed. The cross bounced off their goalie and went in.

After the game, their coach thought our players were trying to show her team up, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. But these kinds of things happen when you have a team with very little experience. Our player just remembered what we had been practicing, but instead of passing to someone in the corner, she dribbled.