Wildcats Shut Down Dominican

The song “My Old School” should have been playing at the University School girls’ soccer game against Dominican. Three of the USM soccer coaches, head coach Patrick Flanagan and assistant coaches Rob Williams and Brett Kucharski played soccer at Dominican.  The coaching trio made sure their old school remembered them. They coached USM to a 5-0 victory over their alma mater in a Midwest Classic Conference North game at USM Monday.

Early in the game the Wildcats’ coaches were none too happy. Their team played like it was very much a Monday.  The Wildcats did little with the ball and let chances get away from them.  Dominican did not do much either, and the game looked like a ping-pong match with the ball just being hit from one side to the other.

The Wildcats finally made something worthwhile happen at 8:22 on their first good passing play of the game.  Senior Sally James got the ball in mid-field and chipped it to space on the right ahead of senior Erika Hurth who was sprinting down the line.  Hurth carried the ball deep into Dominican’s domain and then crossed a pass to senior Jenna Seter, who was approaching the goal on the left.  Seter one-timed the ball inside the left post.  Flanagan said, “ That was the first good play we had.  And look what it did.”

The goal was like a horn that pulled the Wildcats from their fog.  They began to make plays that kept the ball on the Knights’ side of the field and led to shots at the Dominican goal.  They did not score again, however, until the last minute of the first half.   Freshman Merrill Read took the ball from a Dominican forward and headed down the right side.  She eventually crossed it to Seter, who stepped to it and quickly touched it back to sophomore Amber Baker at the center of the 18-yard line.  Baker booted it past Dominican’s junior goalie, Mo Flanagan, the younger sister of the USM coach, at 39:06.

The Wildcats made it 3-0 early in the second half.  Hurth ran the ball down the side like smoke with a tail wind.  She centered into the Knights’ penalty area to Seter, who immediately forwarded it to freshman Kate Nosbusch heading toward the left post.  Nosbusch knocked it into the open side of the net at 47:06.

Seter and Nosbusch combined to score USM’s fourth goal.  Seter ran the ball down the left side and angled a shot that Flanagan dove to save.  The ball rebounded to Nosbusch who ran in and shot it from 10 yards out.  Flanagan made another diving save.  The ball careened to the right.  Nosbusch hustled after it, and before Flanagan could recover to make another great save, Nosbusch lined it into the netting at 67:43.

The Wildcats scored the game’s final goal less than a minute later.  This time Nosbusch brought the ball deep into the Knights’ end and blasted a shot.  It hit the near post, bounced to the far post, and then bounded out to Seter in the goalie box. Seter touched it in at 68:36.

In the game Flanagan made 9 saves.  Junior Caity Prewitt made 2 saves for USM.  Read, who replaced Prewitt with 10 minutes left, made 1 save, giving USM a total of 3 saves in the game.

Dominican is now 5-5 overall and 2-2 in the conference.  USM is 7-1 overall and 5-1 in the conference.  The Wildcats play another conference game at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday when they travel to Beaver Dam to take on Wayland Academy.