Lisa Morocco’s late goal helps MPH girls soccer advance
Lisa Morocco made sure that she and her fellow seniors on the Manlius Pebble Hill girls soccer team were not going to end their high school careers with a defeat on Tuesday. Morocco put in the game-winning goal with two and a half minutes left in regulation, getting the Trojans past Stockbridge Valley 2-1 in the first round of the Class D sectional playoffs.
“She was playing center-mid, received a pass and battled through a couple of attempted tackles,” MPH coach Pat Bentley said of the winning strike’s development. “It was a pretty beautiful goal actually.”
The teams battled to a 1-1 tie in the first half, with Rachel Comfort scoring on an assist from Maja Cannavo for MPH, and Jill Jacobs scoring unassisted for Stockbridge Valley. Indians goalie Olivia Marshall picked up eight saves in the loss, while Trojans keeper Sarah Smith had three saves.
Manlius Pebble Hill, the tournament’s No. 4 seed, will play the winner of fifth-seeded Cinccinnatus and No. 12 Remsen (who played on Tuesday) in the quarterfinals.
“Judging from what we did today, we played well for the first 10 minutes. We were playing our brand of soccer. Then we scored and kind of let down. … We had some moments of not very focused, very aggressive play. … The last minutes of the second half we picked it up,” Bentley said. “We need a more consistent, well-rounded game.”