MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA — The Manchester Essex girls soccer team welcomed Pentucket on Thursday afternoon looking to bounce back after their first loss of the season.
And while the Hornets weren’t able to come out on top, they didn’t fall on the losing side of things either.
Battling for a full 80 minutes, the two Cape Ann League rivals failed to find the back of the net in what went down as a competitive 0-0 draw.
Pentucket was on the attack early in the first half with Eloise Weinberg creating shots, but none of those shots were meant to be.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Pentucket head coach Andy Casey said. “I think if we had better finishing we come away with a win, but this is a tough place to play, so a tie on the road is always a good thing.”
“It was a 50-50, back and forth game against Pentucket; they haven’t let in a lot of goals and today it showed why they have a strong defense,” added Manchester Essex coach Aaron Millman, his team now 1-1-2 on the year. “I feel like we had a couple good opportunities to score and just unfortunately today we didn’t have our scoring shoes on.”
Manchester Essex really struggled to find offense throughout the game, but did have some chances with Ava Dickerson and Sophie Hano creating some opportunities early.
On the other end, Hornets’ goalkeeper Emerald Jakes had an outstanding game with 10 total saves to secure the shutout and give her squad a puncher’s chance.
“I think Emerald played great. Our defense had a pretty good game,” said Millman. “So there’s definitely things that we can improve on, but not letting in any goals is the key to success.”
Following a 4-4 season-opening draw with Rockport, Manchester has yielded just three total goals in the three games since. That included a 5-1 drubbing of Amesbury and a narrow 2-1 loss to Ipswich.
Jakes has been solid all season between the posts, and put together some unbelievable stops on Thursday, including a pair of one-on-one saves to keep the score at zero.
“Before the game I was working with Emerald and I had a feeling like today was going to be her day,” Millman said. “She saved us multiple times, and unfortunately, our forwards didn’t have the opportunity to score to get that win. But Emerald definitely kept us in the game today, so we’re thankful to have her.”
Pentucket had a number of chances to take the lead by controlling possession for much of the second half. But with Jakes in net and the Hornets defense on point they could not convert.
With the Pentucket starting goalie injured they relied on their new goalkeeper Charlotte Dwyer who delivered four saves in her first career start.
The intensity finally picked up in the final five minutes with both teams making crucial stops. Ultimately, however, neither side could find a way to put home the decisive marker.
No team wants to finish with a tie, but it’s certainly better than a loss. Both coaches gave a similar message to their teams after a tough battle.
“I told them just now that I was really pleased with their effort and their work,” Casey said. “We had a lot of really good individual performances, and next week we’re gonna work on shooting.”
“A tie is better than a loss at the end of the day,” added Millman, who also shouted out the defense of Hadley Duncan, Annie Kent, Tessa Novak, Amelia Reed, Nell Taylor and Ellie Virden in the draw.
“We lost earlier in the week against Ipswich, so to me this was a little bit of growth from our defense. This was our first clean sheet shutout of the year.”