The senior midfielder punches in a pair of goals for St. Dom’s.
By Kevin Mills
Staff Writer

AUBURN – Kathy Little obviously knew what she was doing.

When the St. Dom’s girls’ soccer team had an indirect kick and looked to its coach for instructions, Little made her choice in a shooter.

“Sarah hit this,” Little called out.

It turned out to be the right decision. Senior midfielder Sarah Caron drilled home that indirect and added a second-half tally to lead the unbeaten Saints to a 2-0 win over Poland.

“She always mixes it up,” said Caron. “I thought she was going to have two other girls do it.”

The Saints have worked on similar deadball scenarios in practice, but Caron admitted she hadn’t exactly mastered it, yet.

“I didn’t do too well on it in practice,” she said. “So I was a little shocked she had me take it.”

The scoring chance came about on an obstruction call 25 yards away from the net. Lindsey Rowbotham and Caron were summoned to handle the indirect. Rowbotham fed it back to Caron.

“Aim for the corner basically, that’s what I did,” said Caron. “That was the open shot on that one.”

The goal with 21:38 left in the opening half put the Saints in command against a hard-working Poland club (1-2). The Knights were solid defensively and received fine play from goaltender Kasey Darnell and Erika Belanger. Poland just couldn’t muster the kind of offense it needed, especially after the Saints took the early lead.

“It was just a couple of lucky bounces,” said Poland coach Joe Cormier. “There’s nothing else the girls could have done other than put the ball in the net.”

Caron nearly added to the lead late in the first half on a shot from the left side that Darnell saved. Poland’s best chance came with 3:55 left when Mindy Thomas was at the right of the net with Saints keeper Emily Staszak trying to beat her to the loose ball. Staszak knocked the ball away as the two collided.

Early in the second half, Caron gave the Saints some breathing room. She had nearly scored off a corner kick less than two minutes into the half. She netted her second of the day after Allison Turcotte gained possession in midfield and sent a fine pass up to the front line, sending Caron in alone 4:15 into the half.

“It was definitely a beautiful pass to the wide open space, and I just went with it,” said Caron. “I could see the two defenders coming behind me, and the goalie coming at me. I knew I had to kick it pretty soon.”

The Knights tried to create more offense by moving Darnell to the field. Belanger came in and did a fine job, making stops on Rowbotham and Rachel Nadeau. Allison Gagnon also had a nice bid for the Saints, a breakaway set up by Nadeau, but the shot went just wide. Poland did a better job in transition to create some offense but couldn’t get the quality shots off that kind of possession. The Knights best bid in the second half was a shot by Krista Flint that Staszak was there to catch.

“That’s still part of learning the whole system and learning where to be,” said Cormier. “That comes with time.”