Tuesday, September 19th the Pine Grove Area Lady Cardinals took on the Schuylkill Haven Hurricanes in an intense soccer game for a fight at division champions. The Hurricanes already had one division loss under their belt to the Williams Valley Vikings, so they needed to win this match up for any hopes at division champions. On the other hand, the Cardinals, being undefeated at 4-0, felt good coming into their matchup, but were not underestimating their competition.
Viktorya Luckenbach, junior, stated, “Leading up to the game I felt very confident in our abilities, but also a little nervous because I knew they were gonna give us a fight.”
Both the Cardinals and the Hurricanes started their games off strong and held each other to a scoreless first half.
The second half remained scoreless until the 70th minute when Luckenbach tipped a shot past Haven’s goalkeeper to make the score 1-0.
“When I scored I felt lots of relief and excitement,” Luckenbach stated, “I knew we needed a goal badly and it didn’t have to be pretty, it just needed to find the back of the net.”
Ella Fasnacht, senior, also found relief in the goal as she stated ,“When we finally scored I was very happy and felt a little relief, but I knew the game wasn’t over yet.”
The Cardinals held the Hurricanes defensively until the 78th minute when the Hurricanes converted a penalty kick to tie the game 1-1 with only 1:30 left on the clock.
“When Haven scored I was very upset with what caused the goal” stated Fasnacht, “I personally felt like there was no hope because there was so little time left.”
The Cardinals needed to score another goal to knock the Hurricanes out of any chance for Division champions.
The Cardinals were able to achieve a corner kick with only 1 minute left on the clock. Fasnacht took the kick and Rayna Zimmerman, captain, was able to convert a goal with just 37 seconds left in the game making the score 2-1.
“When we scored I was so excited and proud” stated Fasnacht, “I gave Rayna a kiss on the cheek because I was so happy.”
Luckenbach was also ecstatic stating, “I couldn’t wait to give her a big hug. We deserved that win.”
The Cardinals held the Hurricanes for the last seconds of the game and ended with a 2-1 win.