MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Even in a lopsided win or loss, there are lessons to be learned.
On Monday at Pony Lewis Field, it was Morgantown’s girls’ soccer team picking up a 10-0 win over Preston.
In the end, both teams learned some valuable lessons.
For the Mohigans (11-3) it was all about possessing the ball.
“This was about focusing on what we want to do,” MHS head coach Stirlin Rivers said. “No matter who we are playing, we need to focus on what we want to do. Working on our technical skills and that’s pretty much all we wanted to get out of it.”
Preston (2-8-1) was also learning some valuable lessons.
“This was a good opportunity for the girls to get some game action together,” Preston head coach Sarah Kinsey said. “We worked on positioning, worked on sticking together. Just little goals for each individual player and a couple goals for our team that we could improve on.”
Morgantown got out of the gate quickly as junior Ashleigh Weaver scored two goals in the first seven minutes of the contest. She added another goal with 17 minutes left in the first half and tacked on one more in the second half for four goals in the game. Weaver also added a pair of assists.
“It’s fun to be able to connect really well in a game like this,” Weaver said. “I like to see other people score as well. It was great to see Railey (Reeves) score. Those were some great goals.
Reeves, a freshman, added four goals of her own as she scored one in the first half and added a hat trick in the second half.
Also scoring for the Hawks was Gracie Brown and Sasha Hunter. Brown added a pair of assists in the contest while Cara Stout, Ariana Borneo, Cloe Ratliff and Zofia Sabolski all had one assist.
“Railey is a freshman so it’s really great to see her get those goals,” Rivers said. “I don’t think she has ever scored that amount of goals. Ashleigh is our number one striker, so she has to continue to put balls in the back of the net.”
That scoring outburst was much needed for the Mohigans as they were allowed to work on some technical aspects of their game with big contests coming up this week against Steubenville (Ohio) and Hurricane.
Those contests will also test an MHS team that has been bitten hard by the injury bug. Morgantown played the entire game with just one sub on the bench.
“This game is kind of what we needed right now because of these injuries,” Rivers said.
The Mohigans finished with 29 shots on goal. Preston’s Kinley Manko finished with 14 saves.
Story by ERIC HERTER
