Lady Cubs Soccer Loses to Mack, Ties St. Bernard’s

South Fork High’s Lady Cubs soccer team suffered a disappointing 4-1 loss on Wednesday in McKinleyville, and then came from behind twice to tie St. Bernard’s 2-2 Saturday at home.

The Cubs are now 2-3-1 overall on the season, and 1-1-1 against small schools.

At McKinleyville, South Fork dominated the entire first half, keeping the ball in Mack’s end of the field for most of the period. The Lady Panthers’ goalkeeper had 5 good saves to keep South Fork out of the back of the net until senior striker Olivia Baffert finally got past the last defender and poked a shot into the back corner from just a few yards out.

Senior defender Daphne Hobbs repelled the Mack attack time after time, and sophomore keeper Paloma Avilez had two saves to preserve the shutout at the intermission.

However, Mack came out strong in the second half and moved the ball away from Hobbs in order to penetrate the Cub defense. The Panthers scored four goals within 20 minutes before South Fork could stop the bleeding.

The unassisted goal was Baffert’s 3rd of the season.

On Saturday, small school powerhouse St. Bernard’s came to town, fresh off a 4-2 victory over Mack the previous weekend and a scoreless tie against Fortuna on Wednesday. Within 3 minutes the Crusaders were on the board after a loose ball in front of the South Fork goal could not be cleared and was poked in by a St Bernard’s player.

The Cubs shored up their defense and Baffert and sophomore striker Kylie Messenger managed to put several shots on goal, all saved by the Crusaders’ keeper. The 1-0 score stood at the half.

Ten minutes into the second half, junior midfielder Sophia Wallace Boyd took a low shot from the top of the penalty box. The St. Bernard’s keeper got a hand on it, but could not stop it from rolling over the goal line for Wallace Boyd’s first high school goal.

Fifteen minutes later St. Bernard’s scored again, on another loose ball that could not be cleared from in front of South Fork’s goal, putting the Cubs behind again. But the home team battled back again, and with 15 minutes to go in the game, Wallace Boyd slotted a though ball to Messenger, who poked in a 15 yard shot over the keeper’s head and into the back corner of the net. It was Messenger’s third goal of the season.

The last few minutes of the game were an end to end battle as each side attempted to score the winning goal, but the tie stood, and in the end, South Fork was pleased with the result, and St. Bernard’s was bitterly disappointed.

This week the Cubs will face Del Norte at home on Wednesday at a time to be announced, and then will host Willits on Friday at 3 pm for Homecoming. On Saturday they will host Fortuna at 1 pm.