By J. Bombatch for the Middletown Journal

GERMANTOWN — Moments after scoring three goals and assisting on at least one other, Valley View forward Alexis Pal had a tough time explaining why she had such a great game Monday, in the host Spartans’ 6-0 win over Carlisle.

She just knew where to find her teammates, and they certainly knew how to find her.

“I was just able to get myself open, and I passed to my teammates,” she said with almost an embarrassed shrug as she made her way off the Barker Field pitch.

Maybe it was the warmup shirt she was wearing underneath her uniform. Pal wore a “Fenwick Soccer” T-shirt that had once belonged to her cousin, former Falcon scorer Ashley Smith.

A good dose of experience helped the Spartans. Pal figured there might be something to that as well.

“Yeah, we’ve played enough games together that we pretty much know where the other person is going to be. With all the experience we have, I think we have a chance to go pretty far this season,” Pal said.

The Spartans (1-1) broke the game open during a six-minute span in the first half. During that time Valley View punched in four goals, the first of which came from Pal off an assist by Lauren Clay.

About three minutes later, Pal smacked a corner kick to Clay, who scored on a header from the right side of the Carlisle goal. Just 18 seconds later, Spartan senior Christie Jones stole the ball at midfield and dished off to Pal who scored from the right side for a 3-0 lead.

Exactly two minutes later, Rachael Day drove deep into Indians territory along the right side before dumping a pass to Audra Stiver, who promptly punched a shot home from off to the right for the fourth goal of the night.

Carlisle coach Tim Middleton said that four-goal outburst was the difference.

“We knew coming in here that this would probably be our toughest match all year,” Middleton said of his 1-1-1 team. “They had more team speed, they flooded our goal and that burst in the first half just killed us.

“Valley View has a lot of experience and it really showed tonight.”

In the second half, the Spartans added to the lopsided score. First, Kayla Kerns took a pass from Holly Karn for a score with 27:29 left to play.

Then with just over 13 minutes left, Pal quite fittingly closed out the scoring with a nifty lob shot from about 15 yards out.

Spartan coach Jeff Stiver said his team may have still been fired up after a 1-0 shutout loss to West Carrollton last week, a game which saw Valley View outshoot the Pirates roughly 12-1.

On Monday, Valley View outshot Carlisle, 20-1. Ten of those 20 shots were on-goal.

“We just have a really nice blend of seniors and talented juniors on this team,” Stiver said. “We have adequate speed, some of it on defense and a couple burners out front, and we’re a good passing team.

“Of course, it might be a rough year for us next season without all the seniors, but we’ll worry about that later.”

View Article at MJ