Beat Scores Earliest Goal
July 11, 2010 - Women's Professional Soccer (WPS)
Atlanta Beat News Release
CAMBRIDGE, MA (July 11, 2010) - Scoring the Atlanta Beat's (1-7-3) earliest goal in the 2010 season (with a finish in the first six minutes against the Boston Breakers) was midfielder Johanna Rasmussen who recorded her second goal in consecutive matches as the Beat fell 3-1 at Harvard Stadium Sunday night.
Atlanta came out fast, getting on the board just six minutes after the opening kick when forward Eniola Aluko broke free past Breakers defenders, creating a two against one breakaway with Breakers goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. Aluko slotted a left pass to Rasmussen who took the open shot. The goal marks the earliest Beat finish since Mami Yamaguchi's 14 minute score on June 24 against the Philadelphia Independence.
The Beat pressed on, almost netting a few more in the first half. In the 17th minute, Rasmussen, looking for a second, hit a shot from thirty yards out, which looked like it might be going in, but bounced off the cross bar. Just a minute later, Leigh Ann Robinson sent a cross that
Yamaguchi just missed the header on.
In the 37th minute it was Naeher who made the diving save when Aluko shot the ball across the net. The next minute, she made a leaping save from a shot that was sent to the top right corner.
Boston's best chance in the first half came in the 44th minute when Smith sent a ball into the box for Tarpley. Maron sprinted out for the save but couldn't hold onto the ball giving Tarpley an open shot. A Beat defender quickly recovered quickly to deflect the play out for a corner. The Breakers' Laura del Rio had a header off the corner, but it went just over the cross bar.
Despite Atlanta's dominance in the first half, the Beat was unable to pick their steam back up in the second after Boston's three quick goals.
Coming in as a substitute in the second half, Jordan Angeli didn't waste much time before making an impact. In the 49th minute, she received a ball from Leslie Osborne and hit a powerful volley right to the back of the net for the equalizer. This was Angeli's second goal of the season and Osborne's first assist.
Using the momentum, Fabiana sent a cross from the right side in the 52nd minute and Lindsay Tarpley headed it towards the goal. Beat goalkeeper Brett Maron made a punching sae, which gave Smith the rebound for her fifth goal of the season and the lead.
Then, only a minute later, Liz Bogus received a pass from Angeli and sent it easily past Maron to solidify the win. This was Bogus' first WPS career goal.
Quoteables:
Beat Head Coach Gareth O'Sullivan,
On what when wrong tonight
At half time we just said let's go try and get a second goal and it's important to get the second goal and put this thing away. We had a lot of opportunities in the first half to get the second goal. And amazingly enough we set the focus on our clearances and make sure they were long and high and they weren't. It was a crazy 6 or 7 minutes when we gave up the 3. It's difficult to swallow, difficult to fathom, but we'll go back and watch the tape and then won't comment too much on it, it's definitely something that shouldn't happen.
Tony DiCicco, Boston Breakers Head Coach
On building themselves into a hole
I wasn't pleased with the first half. Atlanta is a very technical team and even though they're struggling, you could see that they can keep the ball and we didn't in the first half, so we dug a hole for ourselves. But this team responds and we played a good second half, obviously a great 20 minutes and then rolled it back a little bit so they couldn't get in behind us. I'm hoping two wins in a row after a long stretch that July, August will be a lot better to us than May and June was.
On the first half
One of our goals is to win the first and second balls. And I don't think we won our first second ball until the 30th minute. Those are possessions and every time you lose that, you're defending. That was one of the things we talked about and then we wanted to put players under pressure. When you put players under pressure you turn good players into average players and we did a good job with that in the second half. And this is a team that sticks together and they fight together. I think you saw some of our depth, we're missing four starters, but this is the first time we scored three goals all season.
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Women's Professional Soccer Stories from July 11, 2010
- Beat Scores Earliest Goal - Atlanta Beat
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