Sunrise Fire Tops Plantation 3-1
Sunrise, Fl (January 13, 2007) – The Sunrise Fire (u14 girls) started fast and
held off an attempted Plantation rally to lock up a 3-1 victory over the rival
Eagles.
Aside from the two clubs being natural rivals due to the close proximity to each
other, today’s match carried added appeal as it featured the two u14 Premier teams and
Plantation had won both matches between the teams last year. Furthermore, both
teams are near the top of the FLUGSA standings so the game could turn out to
have important playoff implications down the line.
Sunrise started right at the whistle with precision passing and fast play that
kept the ball entirely on the Plantation end for the first six minutes of the
game. It was then that the Fire’s Kaitlyn Manning put forward Haleigh Stremanos
in a 1v1 situation in the box where Stremanos put the ball in the back of the
net for the 1-0 lead.
At the twelve-minute mark, Sunrise made it 2-0 when Sarah Motta got off a shot
at the top of the 18 that was deflected by a Plantation defender and ended up
deep in the corner. Stremanos ran the ball down just before it went out, turned,
beat a player and lofted the ball just in front of the far post where Tatiana
Penagus headed the ball into the net.
But Sunrise wasn’t done, at 28-minutes Jennifer Torres crossed the ball to the
left side of the box where Stremanos shot from short range to make it 3-0.
The Eagles played better in the second half and five
minutes in a Sunrise foul about 30 yards from the net set up a Bonnie Campbell
goal off of the free kick to pull the Eagles within two. Then, at 50-minutes,
Plantation had a golden opportunity to close to within one-goal when they found
the Sunrise keeper off of her line and fired the ball past the keeper and inside
the right post for what looked like a certain goal. However, Sunrise defender
Manning knocked the ball away just before it entered the goal, preserving the
3-1 Sunrise lead.
The remainder of the game was pretty even and each team traded a few shots. On the day, Sunrise out shot Plantation 17-10. Rebecca Rogers, the Sunrise keeper, had four saves. The Plantation goalkeeper had seven. The victory improved Sunrise to 7-2-1 and dropped the Eagles to 5-2-1.