Revenge Fuels Dale

Carrie Jaeckle, one of Dales tri-captains, played excellent at forward in a huge win over Colonial Heights.

by Stephen M. Lewis
DigitalSports
04/26/2007

Revenge is a powerful, potent and perfect weapon when used in the sports arena.

Take Thomas Dale�??s girls soccer team, for instance. Colonial Heights buried the Knights 2-0 four weeks ago.

The
Knights took the loss and all its feelings, bottled it up and outplayed
and outhustled the Colonials Thursday evening, taking a 3-0 victory.

Thomas
Dale (7-1 Central District, 8-2) now controls its own destiny in the
district as Colonial Heights (5-1-1, 7-1-1), ranked fifth in the
current DigitalSports Top 10, has to hope someone can trip up No. 10
Dale.

�??I always like to be on top. That�??s how I like it,�?� Dale senior tri-captain Karri Bridges said. �??Yeah, it was revenge. I think we were all pretty mad at the loss.�?�

It showed as Dale peppered CH goalie Amanda Holt like she was a target at a firing range. Holt, a junior, was up to the task, however, keeping TD at bay early.

That was until TD midfielder Loren Favale scored from point-blank range with 18:00 left in the first half for the Knights�?? 1-0 lead.

�??Intensity. They wanted it more than we did,�?� Colonial Heights coach Leo Brenes said. �??They scored the first goal and we never recovered from that.�?�

TD
continued to control tempo and achieve opportunities, but couldn�??t put
in another score. It was more of the same to start the second half as
both teams could not sustain offense.

Then, boom! Bridges raced down the right sideline to field a perfect feed from Monique Mack.

With a Colonial on her back, Bridges struck a ball David Beckham
would be jealous of, bending her shot into the left side of the goal
from an extremely difficult angle for a 2-0 lead with 24 minutes to go.

Eight minutes later, Tiffany VanDecker
beat Holt for a 3-0 lead as the shocked Colonials realized the Master
Lock they planned to put on the district race was stolen by Dale.

�??There
are still a lot of games left in the season, but we knew this was a
crucial game,�?� Brenes said. �??Now we�??re going to have to look in the
paper and see what other teams have done. You want to play as the No. 1
team in the district, you have to leave it all on the field.�?�

Said Dale coach John Kabler: �??We control our own destiny. If we can win out, we win the district. That�??s nice to know.�?�

Colonial Heights 0 0 – 0

Thomas Dale     1 2 – 3

TD: Favale, Bridges, Vandecker

Saves: Holt (CH) 8; Dowlen (TD) 3