Lady Marines finding their footing

Does a team learn more about itself in a big win or in a big loss? How about in a head-to-head fight to the finish with an evenly matched opponent?

The Long Beach girls’ soccer team has already experienced a little of each in the early going of the 2012 season, and first-year coach Tara Wesselhoft thinks the Lady Marines revealed their true nature in a match against visiting Baldwin on Sept. 13. Though they ended up on the wrong end of a 1-0 score, the Lady Marines played well and played tough. Senior goalkeeper Cathryna Hughes stopped 10 shots – “She comes up so big,“ Wesselhoft said – and the Lady Bruins scored the game’s lone goal with just 19 minutes to play. From there Long Beach kept constant pressure on Baldwin but could not score the goal that would have tied the game.

“We made one small mistake,” Wesselhoft said. “We locked up some pretty good scorers and we’re learning to play together.”

The Lady Marines started the season in the toughest possible way, playing Syosset at its home field. Syosset, on its way to a 3-0 start and to the top of the Conference AA-II standings, took a 3-0 first-half lead and won 4-0. Two days later the Lady Marines played at Carey and the roles were reversed. This time Long Beach took a 3-0 halftime lead and won 3-1. Emily Agudelo scored two goals, Chyrstal Posoda added another, and Kelly DiResto and Jessica Shreck each had an assist. They could have had more, but the Carey goalie stopped 11 shots. Agudelo scored Long Beach’s first goal of the season with just over 27 minutes left in the first half. 

And then Long Beach hosted Baldwin. The Lady Marines were set to play at Hicksville on Wednesday, after presstime. They’ll host Great Neck South this Friday at the middle school at 4:15 p.m. They’ll also play Port Washington and Plainview-JFK to round out the first half of the schedule.

“In our conference every game will be competitive,” Wesselhoft said. 

Wesselhoft said that Agudelo and Shreck are the key components of the Lady Marines’ attack. “They set everything up, and we run our offense through them.” Defensively, they will rely on sweeper Melissa Rubin. The experienced and fearless Hughes is their last line of defense. 

“We have a good mix of older players and younger players,” Wesselhoft said. “And our chemistry off the field has been great.” She believes that chemistry will carry over to the field, so long as her team is patient and keeps working hard. The most frustrating thing in soccer is to have scoring chances and not see the ball end up in the net. They’ve been blanked twice in three games, and one score would have meant the world against Baldwin. These things have a way of turning around, and the Lady Marines have all the pieces in place to have a strong season.