Sartell girls’ soccer came away with a victory against Alexandria this past Thursday. 

On Thursday, September 19th the Sartell Sabres set up to play an amazing match against the Alexandria Cardinals.

Both teams started off very strong, having multiple chances each. The crowd was electric and the game was intense, drawing a decent amount of fans. Senior Kennedi Gack was the first to put one in for the Sabres with around 20 minutes left in the half. Kennedi received a beautiful ball from junior wing Riley Quinn and had a breakaway. She chipped it right over the goalie’s head to make it 1-0 Sabres.

The Sabres couldn’t just leave it 1-0, they had to put in another goal to secure the lead. Sophomore Mollie Statsick was up for the job. With around 13 minutes to halftime, Mollie was played a through ball by  junior Emalyn Byrd. Mollie went around one defender and slid it into the bottom left corner for the sabres making it 2-0.

 At this point the game was heating up, with the Cardinals getting aggravated. Although, they weren’t nearly as heated as their parents, the Cardinal fans were shouting at everyone including the referees, Sartell players, and even the ballgirls. They would find a way to argue every call. The Sabres kept their heads and didn’t react to anything besides what was happening in the game.

  “We just had to focus on our own game, play simple and not panic.” -Mollie Statsick.

And the Sabres did just that, Natalie Koltes scoring a corner kick, although it was an own goal for Alexandria the ball from Natalie was still amazing, placing it perfectly in front of the net. Score was now 3-0 Sabres, but there was still a majority of the second half yet to go.

The Cardinals started getting many chances for goals, bombing it up the field to try to compete with the defense. Junior goalie Brynn Darling was making save after save, giving a wonderful performance that was very essential to the game. The Cardinals were relentless, after many shots they finally squeezed in a goal with a little over halfway through the second half.

Now the pressure was on, a 2 goal advantage is a very dangerous lead, but the Sabres defense Jenna Jansky, Isabelle Benninghoff, and Autumn Simmons did an amazing job, clearing every ball they could. They were not allowing the Cardinals to score again.

The game ended in a 3-1 Sabres win.