Warriors turn in third straight shutout

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on March 28, 2006 2:00 PM

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Another strong defensive performance, coupled with "lucky" goals, vaulted the Eastern Wayne women's soccer team past Wilson Beddingfield 3-0 on Monday evening at Little Big Horn.

Sophomore goalkeeper Brittany Spencer earned her third consecutive shutout and the Warriors (3-6-1) remained unbeaten in three Class 3-A Eastern Carolina Conference matches. Eastern Wayne, which claimed its second straight home win, is the guest of county rival Charles B. Aycock on Wednesday.

Beddingfield (7-3) endured its second defeat in three ECC outings.

"It's an ugly win and sometimes you just have to close your eyes on some goals," said Eastern Wayne coach Jorg Wagner, whose team has outscored conference opposition 13-0. "Beddingfield did a nice job denying us clear opportunities on goal. The goals that fell were pretty symptomatic for how the game went.

"Beddingfield is a very physical team on both ends and (the match) was well-played. Maybe we just got a little luckier tonight."

The Warriors experienced good fortune just four minutes into the match. The junior tandem of Sam Frazer and Natalie Taylor, who combined for one goal and one assist, pressured the Bruin goal. Frazer crossed a ball into Taylor, who ripped a shot that deflected off a Beddingfield defender and into goal for the 1-0 lead.

Eastern Wayne misfired on opportunities to increase its one-goal advantage throughout the 80-minute contest. Wagner's squad failed to convert eight corner kicks, including five in the opening half.

"That's a credit to their defensive setup," said Wagner. "We send out two players (Frazer and Taylor) and they bring two defenders, and not everybody does that. That shuts down the corner kicks if we're not clearly thinking about what to do.

"Our players should know what to do in situations like that."

Beddingfield couldn't find any rythym offensively, either. The Warriors challenged every head ball and constantly intercepted passes, which disrupted the Bruins' attack.

The visitors managed just one shot on goal.

"They played an incredible head game," said Beddingfield coach Glenn Griffin. "It's tough when you have people aggressively playing toward the ball and willing to go after the high ones. They just made it hard for us to do anything."

Senior Deniz Alemdar notched the Warriors' second goal off an assist from Frazer seven minutes into the second half. Alemdar has two goals in her last three starts.

The Bruins pushed balls into the Warriors' attack zone, but struggled to take shots on goal. Wagner's team had six defenders between Beddingfield's strikers and the goal.

"It's hard to score when they go at it that hard," said Griffin.

Wagner said the staunch defensive effort was a carryover from last Wednesday's four-goal conquest of Wilson Hunt.

"This time around we did the same thing and the only difference was in the Hunt game our defenders and midfielders supported the attack," said Wagner. "In this game, we were happy to keep the opponent in front of us and not allow them to create anything.

"It helped us in that respect, but it didn't help us defensively."

Frazer tallied the Warriors' final goal in the 78th minute off Kasie Edwards' assist. Frazer has provided either a goal or an assist in all three ECC matches.