Lady Dawgs use big half to pull away from Sandcrabs for conference title

Palm Coast Observer
Sports

Pull quote: “He talked about needing to win and how last year we should have won the conference but a miscommunication cost us the title. He told us that we needed to go score within the first few minutes of the next half and take it to them with a lot of intensity.” Madison Hald, on coach Peter Hald’s inspiring halftime speech

It was a close game for a half. Then, head coach Pete Hald took his Lady Dawgs to the locker room, and out came a different bunch, which scored in the opening minute of the second half and four more in just 22 minutes. FPC routed the Seabreeze Sandcrabs 7-2 to win the Five-Star Conference Championship Tuesday, Jan. 5, at FPC.

Seabreeze began the scoring, when sophomore Alauna Neely sailed a ball from the distant right corner into the back side of the net in the fifth minute of the game, on the Sandcrabs first shot attempt. FPC tied the game in the fifth minute with a Bella Giuliano goal.

With a little under 10 minutes remaining, Neely put a ball into the box that perfectly found Skyler Mayo, who scored from a foot out of the box to put the Sandcrabs back up 2-1. Then, just before the break, Lady Dawg Jade Louis Juene scored off of a volley to tie the game 2-2 at halftime. The Sandcrabs had only two shots but made them both, and, despite giving up two goals, Seabreeze goal keeper had seven first-half saves.

In the first minute of the second half, Jemina Virret found the back of the net to give the Bulldogs their first lead. Then, Hald’s shot escaped goal keeper Hailey Beach’s gloves and rolled into the net. Just two minutes later, Hald nailed a long-range shot that sailed over Beach’s head. A few minutes later, Juene scored a second goal, when her ball bounced off of Beach’s block and ran into the net. Then, she secured a hat trick and the Bulldogs’ fifth score in the second half, when she rebounded a ball on the goal line and put it back in from point-blank range.

“They’re (Seabreeze) young and inexperienced, and I think that showed in the second half,” coach Hald said. “We have some mature players who have been in this situation before. Considering our senior night didn’t happen (due to the weather), and our warmup wasn’t very good, I cannot be displeased. We put seven goals in, and that’s been our problem.”