Fairfield shuts out Delone Catholic
Fairfield's Hannah Logue has made a name for herself since she began her high school soccer career, but the senior handed out five assists in helping the Green Knights defeat Delone Catholic, 7-0, in a battle of teams that both entered the match with unblemished records on Tuesday afternoon in McSherrystown.
Logue also scored her 19th goal of the season and the 142nd of her career.
"Hannah can score goals seemingly whenever she wants. She knows that, we know that and our opponents know that," Fairfield head coach Phomma Phanhthy said. "But we're trying to create opportunities for everybody to score so that our opponents can't just mark one or two girls and stop us."
The major benefactor on Tuesday was freshman Nora Clarke, who scored four times, all off assists from Logue that went right to center. Phanhthy made a switch, moving Logue from center to right, midway through the opening half that opened things up for the Knights (8-0, 5-0 YAIAA Division III).
Delone (5-1, 4-1 D-III) kept Fairfield off the board through the first 25 minutes of the match.
"Our strategy was to pack it in defensively and close off the shooting lanes," Delone Catholic head coach Derf Maitland said. "When they moved Logue outside, that really opened things up for them. It forced us to change our defense and we ended up losing our marks and giving them open looks in the process."
Clarke's first two markers came 34 seconds apart and Fairfield led 2-0 with 14:09 to go until halftime and Logue added a goal with 1:12 to play until intermission.
Clarke struck again with 37:19 remaining in the match, and a final time with 11:44 to play. In between, the visitors received goals from Kenda Miller off of a Logue assist and a goal from Moriah Logue that Clarke assisted on.
"Hannah did a great job of setting me up to score, and all I had to do was finish them," Clarke said. "It feels good to contribute to a win against a good team."
Logue said of the Squirettes: "We expected them to come out hard and they did. They pushed us early and we had to work to get control of the match."
Despite being on top in Division III, Phanhthy is not overlooking three-time defending division champion York Catholic, whom the Knights host at 7 p.m. Thursday.
"To me, York Catholic is still the team to beat in our division," he said. "They've earned that by winning the division the last three seasons. They're a very good team and we will have to play well to win."
Freshman striker Annabel Anderson, who notched a hat trick in Fairfield's 5-1 victory over Gettysburg on Sept 10, was hurt late in that match and is still nursing an ankle injury.
"It's more precautionary at this point than anything with Annabel," Phanhthy said. "We're not going to rush her back, because we know how much we're going to need her. But she could be back next week."
- 1. Fair, Nora Clarke (Hannah Logue), 14:43; 2. Fair, Clarke (H. Logue), 14:09; 3. Fair, H. Logue, 1:12.
Second Half - 4. Fair, Clarke (H. Logue), 37:19; 5. Fair, Kendra Miller (H. Logue), 30:06; 6. Fair, Moriah Logue (Clarke), 13:15; 7. Fair, Clarke (H. Logue), 11:44.
Shots on Goal - Fair 11; DC 2
Corners - Fair 9; DC 3
Goalies - Fair, Ashley Roser (2 saves); DC, Lindsey Vandergrift (4 saves).