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M&M's deliver McKinney scores goal, McCandless gets shutout as Central rolls Ridgewood

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By MARTY MILLER, Hernando Today correspondent

Published: December 3, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - Sometimes in soccer, it only takes one goal and some terrific defense to win a match.

That happened Wednesday night for Head Coach Amy Ellis and her Central girls soccer team as freshman Alyx McKinney scored a goal in the first half while the Bears defense and the goalkeeping of junior Kady McCandless enabled the visitors to down Ridgewood at Booster Stadium, 1-0.

The win improved Central's overall record to 2-3-1 on the year and gave it its first win in Class 5A, District 7 this year after losing two and tying another match.

Central got all the scoring it needed in the 11th minute of the first half on the combined efforts of McKinney and senior Jaklyn Diaz.

Diaz had the ball on the left wing deep in the Ridgewood end when she crossed a ball into the penalty box that found McKinney wide open about 12 yards from the goal. The freshman then put the ball into the upper right corner out of the reach of Ridgewood goalie Brittany Martin, 1-0 Bears.

"We've missed as many as five starters the last week and those two (McKinney and Diaz) have just started to click as an offensive combination," said Ellis. "The problem we had is that in the second half the game started to get a little chippy and I didn't want to take a chance on some of my players, who have just started getting back from injury, getting hurt tonight."

The beginning of the match was all Ridgewood as it had nine shots on goal in the opening 10 minutes of the game, with two of those shots hitting a goal post.

But after that, McCandless and her defense settled down to take over the game.

In the first half, Ridgewood out shot Central 13-6 but during the entire second half, the Rams only had four shots on goal as McCandless never had to make a save.

"That's not normally the style of play I like to use, but I was comfortable making some changes of taking out some offense to play defense," said Ellis.

In the next month before Christmas vacation, the Lady Bears have six matches left on their schedule, with three of them being Class 5A, District 7 opponents.

On Dec. 6, the Bears take on district opponent Land O' Lakes followed by tilts with Citrus, district foes River Ridge and Wesley Chapel before ending the year with games against Lecanto and Springstead.

"We had a lot of trouble with injuries the early part of the year and just now we're starting to get some of those people back on the field," said Ellis. "So we haven't had that much of a chance to work together as a unit on the field during games, but hopefully by the time the district tournament arrives, we'll be a much better team."

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