Millbrook at Kent School

After a rocky start, the Mustangs tightened their shoe laces, gritted their teeth inside their mouthguards, and went to work; and work they did, hard, fast and efficient. A strong Kent team came out to play. Capitalizing on three successive penalty corners in the opening minutes, Kent scored on the third corner, off a scrum in front of goal, catching our defense napping. But at 24:53, Valentina VonKlencke scored a pretty deflection goal  from the right post position, something she worked hard on in practice. The game went end to end, the play wide open as both teams took advantage of a fast surface to hit big through balls. At 14:43, Kent scored their second goal on a hard, bouncing cross from the right that was nicked in by the left post attacker, a really fine shot. The Mustangs played flat for awhile, not mounting much offense until we finally generated a penalty corner at 2:07. Kane took the shot, Zublin crossed the rebound and Anthony scored. Assists for Kane and Zublin. The score remained tied 2-2 at the half.

There must have been something in the Gatorade that the Mustangs drank at halftime, but they came out in the second half focussed and  ready to play. Kent did not. Anthony especially revved up the offense by simply refusing to give up on any ball within her reach. Millbrook scored their third goal at 22:56, then another goal at 9:07 and the last at 2:11. I don't want to go into too much detail but suffice it to say one of our attack players scored a hat trick. But all the glory does not go to the offense. Playing an especially gritty, tough, constantly under pressure game and coming up with the big stop and hit time and again was sweeper Tory Small who played her best game of the season. She proved she has nerves of steel as the last line of defense before the ever nimble Morrison in goal. Fracchia, Burdis, Chapman and Kane held the midfield, making our fine offense possible. Morrison made 8 big saves on the day. The entire team is to be congratulated for playing a superb second half against a very good squad. This was clearly a day where Millbrook simply wanted it more than Kent.