Hastings

On Wednesday evening, the Marshall High School girls soccer team hosted Hastings for their final I-8 Conference match of the season and their last regular season home game as well. The evening began with Marshall honoring their 9 graduating seniors with a Senior Day ceremony. Unfortunately, the festive mood didn't last as Hastings came away with a 1-0 victory.

Marshall started the game with all nine of the seniors in the starting line-up and had most of the early play. They had several good chances and were either called back for off-side or unable to capitalize on. Midway through the first half, Hastings scored a flukey goal against the run of play and took a 1-0 lead into halftime.

Hastings' mixture of physical, aggressive play continued to cause Marshall trouble in the second half as Marshall struggled to create quality chances for the majority of the half and Hastings claimed the victory.

With the loss, Marshall finished the I-8 Conference season with a 3-3-0 record and tied for 3rd place in the conference standings. The loss drops their overall record to 8-8-1 for the season.

Elk Rapids

For the final weekend of the season, Marshall traveled north for a pair of games. The first of those games was Friday evening against Elk Rapids. After having spent some time learning the sport of curling earlier in the day, Marshall arrived in Elk Rapids on a hot, sunny evening. Marshall jumped out to a 2-0 lead on two beautiful goals. The first goal came when Lola Saber fed the ball to Ollie Rozell on the wing. Rozell's beautiful cross was met at the far post by Nyla Whittaker, who one-timed the ball into the net to give Marshall the early lead. Marshall doubled their advantage when Rozell found Anaya Burghdorf in the box and Burghdorf put the ball in the back of the net. In an action filled first half the excitement was not over as Elk Rapids managed to pounce on a loose ball at the top of the box to narrow the score to 2-1. Elk Rapids also managed to hit the post 3 times in the 1st half as well.

In the second half, Marshall came out and established more control of the game at both ends of the field. That resulted in far fewer chances for Elk Rapids and two more Marshall goals. Rozell was again at the heart of it, as her corner was met in the air by Nicole Ladd. Ladd powered the ball into the net to increase Marshall's lead to 3-1. Later in the match, Rozell finished off a 3 assist, 1 goal game by scoring a penalty kick after an Elk Rapids handball in the box.

Marshall finished the game on a strong and headed into day two of their up north trip with some positive vibes. The win bumped their record to 9-8-1 on the year as they headed into their final regular season match of the year.

Traverse City West

On a cool (30 degrees cooler than Friday evening), windy, rainy Saturday morning, Marshall played their final regular season match of the year against a strong, polished Traverse City West (TCW) team. TCW had just won their conference championship on Thursday evening by defeating Petoskey 3-1.

The artificial turf clearly suited Marshall as they began the game very well and both teams played some high-paced attractive soccer. Midway through the 1st half, Marshall opened the scoring when Anaya Burghdorf received a pass from Ollie Rozell. She turned and slipped a shot past two defenders and into the corner of the net by a stunned goalkeeper to give Marshall a 1-0 lead. It was Burghdorf's 2nd goal in as many games and the 5th consecutive Marshall goal that Rozell had either scored or assisted on. The goal didn't seem to damage TCW's confidence as they began to play with more intensity and attack with more purpose. They were able to find the net twice with two quality goals to take a 2-1 lead into intermission.

In the second half, both teams continued to play smart, attractive soccer. Marshall was able to do a better job of clamping down defensively and making the TWC opportunities more limited and predictable. Just when it looked like the match would end with TWC up 2-1, a long ball bounced over a TWC defender's head and into Lola Saber's path. Saber took one touch and unleashed a powerful shot from 22 yards out that gave the goalkeeper no chance and soared into the top corner of the net to tie the score at 2-2. TWC was unable to really mount an answer and 2-2 was the final score.

Marshall played some of their best soccer of the year against a high-quality opponent and will hope to carry that momentum into the MHSAA district tournament next week.

With the tie, Marshall concludes its regular season with a 9-8-2 record.

They return to action next week when they host Coldwater in a 1st round MHSAA District Tournament match.

(write by coach Morgan)