RICHFORD – The Caledonia United girls soccer team’s defense posted its third straight shutout of the season last week, improving to 3-0 with a pair of wins over Richford and Blue Mountain.
Jaidyn Carson rocketed a feed from Birtu Lindert-Boye in the 59th minute for the game winner as Cal United edged defending Division IV champion Richford on the road last Wednesday 1-0. Lindert-Boye found Carson well outside of the box near the left side of the field, where she ripped it into the top right corner out of the reach of Richford goalkeeper Mollie Smith. Smith ended the day with 10 saves in the loss as the Lady Rockets fell to 1-1 on the season. Eliska Siebenbrunner made 11 stops for Cal United to preserve their second straight 1-0 victory.
“Birtu made a timely square pass to Jaidyn, who took two quality touches before scoring the game-winner. Eliska came up big again with some key stops down the stretch, including a breakaway where she left her line to come out and shut it down,” said head coach Spencer Morse.
The offense matched the defense on Friday, exploding for a 6-0 road win at Blue Mountain. Carson and Peyton Winn led the way for Cal United, tallying a pair of goals and an assist apiece. Chloe North buried a feed from Winn 10 minutes into the match to make it 1-0 visitors before Winn slammed home a pass from Cora Abetti five minutes later for her first ever varsity goal. Carson set up Winn seven minutes later to make it 3-0 and the rout was on. Carson and Abetti closed out a fast and furious first half, combining for three more unassisted goals for Cal United, including an Olympico by Carson off a perfect corner kick in her first tally.
Ava Kingsbury stopped five shots for Blue Mountain in the loss.
Siebenbrunner recorded eight saves to preserve the third straight shutout for the Cal United defense. It would be hard to find a better start to a high school goalkeeping career then what the Junior captain has posted for Coach Morse’s club early on this season.
“Eliska has really done a fantastic job for us to start the season! After we built a good lead in the first half, Cora moved to sweeper in the second half and did great job shutting down Blue Mountain’s attack,” said Morse.
The competition stiffens this week for Cal United as they play their first match of the season at home against an Enosburg team that won nine games in Division II last fall. They’ll stay in Danville for a match-up against Burke Mountain Academy the following Monday.
