The Tigers Varsity Girls Soccer team traveled to Harbor Beach for their last game of the season. They already confronted this team earlier with a loss. The coaches' directions were to try to contain this talented host team and play more defensive by marking the dangerous players.

The first half started slowly for the visitors as the hosts were dominating throughout the whole field by winning most of the balls and creating great chances to score. Fair enough, with only 10 minutes played, the ball was crossed towards the Caro's goalie but could not win the ball over the unmarked Harbor Beach tall player who headed it in for their first goal. The Caro team doesn't seem to grasp the notion of tight marking as another dangerous player was left outside the box who had plenty of time to control the ball and shoot it to beat the Tigers' goalie for the second goal at around 36 minutes of the first half. The coaching staff could not retain their frustration as they keep reminding their players to stick to the defensive basics to disturb the opponents and block their dangerous shots. The defense kept containing this talented team but thanks to the amazing goaltender Talena Pifer, various attempts did not lead to any outcome at the scoreboard. However, another unmarked player was able to shoot the ball to score but Pifer was able to deflect the shot but could not catch the ball which was intercepted by another unmarked forward player from Harbor Beach who easily placed in the back of the net for the third goal. The coaching staff was saving the obvious unpleasant speech for the half time break as the game was nearing the 40 minute mark.

The coaches contained their frustration and in fact encouraged their players to do better at second half and it was up to them to make it happen.

The second half was reflective of the expectations of the coaching staff after the speech and encouragements as the team played more competitive with tight marking and solid defense. With 10 minutes in the second half, an unmarked player was able to dribble inside the dangerous zone and directed the ball with her left foot to surprise the Tigers' goalie for the 4th and last goal of the game. The Tigers tried to initiate a couple of counter attacks but the skilled hosting defense did not leave any room for the visitors to maneuver. At least, the hosts were contained to only one goal in the second half and that was enough to satisfy the coaching staff and the players to walk away with the similar 0-4 score outcome as the last game earlier in he season.

Junior, Captain and Sweeper Lydia Chapelo received the game MVP award/trophy for her outstanding performance in central defense. She was able to stop several breakaways and scoring attempts, retrieved many balls left and right and managed to block as many shots as 15 during the game.

Goaltender Talena Pifer stopped 31 shots during this game which brings her total to 317 saves for the whole season for an average of 23 saves per game. Another mention of great performance goes to freshman Olivia Walker who was able to mark their best player (#16) and prevented her to score further. Walker was later moved to center midfield position to try to trigger any counter attacks with great effort and managed to generate some breakaways without any tangible results to the scoreboard.

Next game will be in Frankenmuth for the second round District game against Garber at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, May 28. Bus leaves at 4:30 pm from the Caro High School. Garber beat USA 8-0 today during the first round.