Gonzaga duo lead Emerald City in dominant 7-0 road win against Spokane Shine

Gonzaga's Harber (left) & Lee (right) celebrate in big ECFC win | Photos: Gerald Barnhart - GALLERY

Last year the Spokane Shine allowed seven goals all season. In their second match of the campaign Saturday night visiting Emerald City put that same number past the hosts in the span of 90 minutes. Six different players found the back of the net along with an own goal for Emerald City in the win, though Marina Nesic had a goal and two assists and the Gonzaga duo of Tori Lee and Cricket Harber returned to town and each scored.

Emerald City came into the match having played to a scoreless draw and a 1-0 road loss against Spokane in their debut campaign last year. The scoreless status against the Shine came to an end quickly at Spokane Falls Community College Saturday night when Nesic sent a ball behind the defense four minutes into the match that allowed Megan Chapin to continue her run to goal, putting it in from about 16 yards out.

“Happy with the result; happy that we had, I think, seven different goal scorers,” said Emerald City head coach Niki Taylor. “It’s a long ride over and back so as a visiting team it’s a good result to get and now we’ll head home and hopefully get another couple next week.”

Erin Craig

Ten minutes later an unfortunate Spokane touch led to a second goal as a quick series up the left side of the field by Emerald City was cut off by the Shine, but the ball, sent diagonally back and to the outside errantly went directly into the path of Erin Craig on the left flank. The University of Montana standout took the ball and drove to goal for the finish, her second on the young season.

From there, the game just simply got away from the Shine. A corner in the 32nd minute dropped in at the far post where the ball was not cleared and eventually found its way to Harber for the putaway from close range.

Four minutes before the intermission a fast-paced break up the right side by Caroline Karlsson led to an own goal when her cross in to Samantha Jones in the middle of the six was knocked in by a Shine player.

“I knew they would be good, but we were awful,” said Shine head coach Dan Philp. “It hurts a little bit with graduation and stuff this week, missing a lot of kids this weekend, but that’s not good enough. The effort wasn’t there, no quality – it was just miserable to watch.

“They looked way more experienced, had way more pace than us; they were first to every ball. Everything you expect out of the players, you didn’t get it today – effort and stuff we asked them to do… just frustrating.”

Spokane switched goalkeepers from Gonzaga’s Christina Tombari to Whittni Mundel at the break, but the result was nearly the same as Mundel was beaten four minutes into the second half when a corner kick resulted in Lee driving it home from the middle of the area to make it 5-0.

“It’s tough to know what to expect with this league, not only year in and year out but also from week to week because everybody travels with different rosters and we didn’t know what to expect,” Taylor said of the significant and arguably surprising margin of victory. “We just wanted to come here and work as hard as we could to get a positive result for ourselves.”

Another turnover with nine minutes remaining proved costly for the Shine as Nesic quickly fed Marina Galaz, who broke toward the box and perfectly placed the ball just inside the post out of Mundel’s diving reach. With two minutes left the pair combined again with Galaz sending Nesic down the left flank where she scored from the edge of the box.

At the other end, the Shine had very few opportunities on the night. Teenager Chae Brown, a returning player signed this week only to leave the game with injury, had a chance in the first half only to see goalkeeper Liz Ruiz, who was hardly challenged on the night, smother the ball first to prevent a shot. In the second half Brittney Conway had a chance for a header off a cross in close, but it was deflected away.

“Casey Berrier was key just organizing our defense,” Taylor said about her key player for the night. “And Marina Nesic had a few assists and finally got her first goal of the season. We had a number of players - everybody contributed and worked hard as shown by the goal scorers that we had.”

The match was the second game of the season for Emerald City in the Evergreen Cup, giving them a 1-1-0 record as they previously lost to SRR Issaquah.

The Shine have a quick turnaround, travelling to play AC Seattle, who are making their WPSL debut, on Sunday.

“Tomorrow, at least we pick up six new kids, which will help. Julia Moravec comes in for her first game, a couple St Martins kids and the Portland State goalkeeper Caitlin Plese will be joining us,” Philp said about the next 24 hours. “So, at least we are adding some experience, which will be a big help. We won’t have to rely on the high school kids as much. Maybe we’ll go a little more defensive tomorrow and try and get some points on the board cuz that’s just our biggest problem right now, defense.”

Emerald City is off until they visit AC Seattle Thursday in the new club’s second match of the year.

“Ready to see AC Seattle and what they are bringing to the table this year, and take it game by game,” said Taylor about the near future.

MATCH REPORT – Emerald City 7 :: 0 Spokane Shine

Scoring Summary
EC: Megan Chapin (Marina Nesic) 4
EC: Erin Craig 14
EC: Cricket Harber 32
EC: Own goal 41
EC: Tori Lee (Casey Berrier) 48
EC: Marina Galaz (Marina Nesic) 81
EC: Marina Nesic (Marina Galaz) 88

Lineups:
Emerald City: Liz Ruiz; Cricket Harber, Maya Marder, Casey Berrier, Indira Ilic; Caroline Karlsson, Marina Nesic, Caroline Brawner, Tori Lee; Erin Craig, Megan Chapin – Tori Burns; Samantha Jones, Karley Nelson; Ali Skogrand; Marina Galaz
Spokane: Christie Tombari; Allison Jordan, Lisa Clausen, Chelsie Breen, Kendra Morscheck; Jami Hegg, Whitney Wood, Jaimey Etten; Kara Marbury, Brittney Conway, Chae Brown – Riley Richardson, Kenna Simon, Whittni Mundel

AROUND THE DIVISION

SRR Issaquah were 3-0 winners on the road Saturday evening versus the Westside Timbers, who were 2-0 victors the night before against the Bend Timbers. As of 2:00 am Saturday night there was no report on the Bend at THUSC Diamonds contest. In addition to Spokane visiting AC Seattle Sunday, Issaquah continues its Oregon road swing versus THUSC.

#INWsoccernews