Zero.
Not only did the Conner girls soccer team shut out Cooper in a 2-0 victory Wednesday night in Union, but they didn’t even allow a shot on goal.
Cougars coach Mike Hughes made sure it was the first thing he told his team after the game.
“One of the things we stressed was trying to limit transition. Every time a ball pops free, you got to put a body on it. And I think tonight, if there were transition opportunities, there wasn’t many because we were literally on every single ball and we took the confidence away,” Hughes said.
The Cougars (12-2-2) defensive effort was dominant to say the least and were able to finally break through in the 64th minute when Ella Mann collected a shot off the crossbar and finished in the back of the net for the game’s first goal.
Mann is still working her way back, Wednesday her seventh game of the season after missing nine games due to an injury.
“We really wanted to take it hard to them tonight. Milana (Arevalo) put a great ball in and I just happened to be there,” Mann said. “I’ve really been wanting to get one and it’s super awesome to put one in against Cooper.”
It was more than enough, Cooper (7-4-2) struggling to get much momentum into the Cougars final third. The Jaguars lost some wind in their sails during the match.
“We had a solid game plan coming in and we had two players go out with injury that we were counting on to help us out in the offense and it was tough to regroup after that,” Jaguars coach Scott Hughes said. “But credit to Conner, especially the organization on their backline. Very hard to penetrate the backline even if you have multiple attackers, so they did a really good job of defending us.”
Milana Arevalo put the icing on the cake in the 74th minute, her seventh goal of the season sneaking inside the right post on a shot from the edge of the penalty box. The win finished off a 3-0 33rd District regular season record for the Cougars, outscoring Ryle, Boone County and Cooper by a combined score of 14-0.
“You hope that it kind of puts into the picture of everybody else like ‘Hey, Conner is the team to beat and beaten everybody by multiple goals.’ We’ve still not peaked, we’ve dealt with injuries, we’re starting to get some of those girls back so we’re starting to get into it,” Hughes said.
Conner posted its seventh shutout of the season, having only allowed more than one goal twice in 16 games. Ally Welch has been the goalkeeper for all of it, improving her goals against average to a measly 0.75 per game. Wednesday’s effort was fueled by the communication on the back line.
“Overall I just think we had some great chemistry back there and we made sure there was no shots on goal and we were tight to our marks,” sophomore defender Izelee Kerns said. “We were all positive together and had great chemistry together.”
Cooper had just one shot in total, a physical game resulting in 19 fouls combined between the two. Allie Ames made four saves for the Jaguars as they’ll face Ryle next week to try and lock up the No. 2 seed.
“Would be nice to get another shot, have a couple girls healthier and maybe we can kind of stick with the full gameplan. They’re a well organized team defensively and Coach Hughes does a great job,” Scott Hughes said.
The Jaguars return to action Monday at Highlands.
Conner plays at Holy Cross on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. The Cougars finished with 13 shots, six of them on net.
