Napoleon, MI. – On a beautiful sunny evening, the Napoleon girls’ soccer team played host to the Leslie Blackhawks, looking for the season sweep. It was senior night for the Pirates, and after honoring their 11 seniors with gift baskets and flowers, it was game time.
Before the game, Kelsey Chapman and I joked with her teammate Junior Lily Eagen, whose uniform number is 5, that she was going to score 5 goals. And we ended up being off by only one. Eagen put on a scoring show throughout the game. She was on fire and couldn’t be stopped, and didn’t even play the whole 80 minutes, or she might’ve scored the fifth predicted goal and more.
The Pirates dominated throughout the first half, keeping the ball in the Leslie zone most of the time. With just over 15 minutes gone, Eagen got her first goal of the night, blasting a shot over the Blackhawks ‘ goalkeeper’s head. Just a couple of minutes later, Eagen struck again, giving her Pirates a 2-0 lead.
4 minutes later, Eagen had a corner throw from the left of the Blackhawks goal, and Senior Meghan Smith bounced it off her head into the net for a huge 3-0 Pirate lead. With time counting down in the first half, it was Eagen again with a corner kick that went into the back of the goal, giving the Pirates a huge 4-0 lead going into the half.
After the half, the Blackhawks put a new keeper in their goal. But the Pirates never let up, keeping a majority of the play in the Blackhawks zone. The Pirates’ defense stepped up big and did a great job as usual. Less than 8 minutes into the half, it was Eagen getting goal number four. The Blackhawks Thomas scored, ending the shutout for the Pirates at about the 15-minute mark, cutting the Pirate lead to 5-1.
With 6:18 left in the game, the Pirates had lots of substitutes in and off a corner throw, it was Freshman Samantha Ochoa getting her first goal ever. The young girl who recently moved to Napoleon from Colombia was super excited, and so were her teammates as they all high-fived and hugged in celebration. The Pirates would hold on, giving them a huge 6-1 victory in front of a large crowd, the pep band, and putting the exclamation point on the night, honoring the seniors.
The Pirates (7-8-1) will hit the road Monday to Manchester to finish the regular season and then head to Quincy on Wednesday for a 5:30 game in round one of the District 41 playoffs.
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