It's never fun to lose but I thought tonight we gave pretty much everything we had. We couldn't ask for more from our team. Since we found out we were in we mainly focused on some defensive tactics for the playoffs and I thought the girls executed it very well tonight. East had 2 good looks on goal in the first 80 minutes and both times Mairin Coghlan made good saves, aside from that I thought we did a good job of limiting them to longer range shots. Marlena Ries, Hannah Thomson, Anna Cairone and Brooke Fischer were excellent in defense tonight. In front of them Izzy Linus, Sammy Judge, Sophia Gile and Riley Hamilton did a fantastic job of pressing their mids and getting behind the ball when we lost it.
In focusing on those tactics we lost a little bit of attacking momentum and East has an excellent back line, they were hard to break down and it was tough for us to find shots throughout the game. The goal that won the game was really good, their attacker sidestepped a couple of our defenders and then shot back across goal into the far top corner. It was certainly a goal worthy of winning the game, sometimes you just have to accept that.
It's been a long and emotional season, one that we didn't want to end but obviously tonight it did. Throughout all of the ups and downs the group has continued to stay together and worked hard regardless of the situation. A lot of that mentality and the success of our season has been down to our 11 seniors, I told them after the game how proud we were of them and that their impact on our program will be seen in the future. As a coaching staff this is our first full 4 year group and from day 1 to now it's been fun to watch them develop on and off the field. They have extremely bright futures ahead of them and we are thankful to have been a part of that along the way.