BY MIKE WHITE
Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — Lakewood High School girls soccer coach Miguel Arroyo makes no secret that the 2004 campaign has been full of frustration.
Following a 1-0 loss to Point Boro Monday afternoon, the Lady Piners fell to 2-11 overall. Still, Arroyo, his staff, and his team members continue to push ahead.
“It has been a very tough and frustrating year,” Arroyo said. “This is basically a senior-laden team. We have girls with a lot of varsity experience. But we have had some problems executing at the offensive end of the field. We started off the year not playing that well. But since the midway point, we have picked it up. The girls are still working extremely hard despite the setbacks.”
One of the few bright spots for Lakewood came last Saturday with a 3-0 win over Long Branch. Senior Erin Cunliffe, one of the team’s leading scorers last season, paced the Lady Warriors with two goals.
Amanda Finkle scored Lakewood’s other goal, while teammates Carly Rasiewicz and Ana Lemos added assists in Lakewood’s second win of the season.
“We played well in this game,” Arroyo said. “We had a lot of shots on goal and managed to come away with three goals. Erin scored a couple of goals in the opening half, which kind of jump-started us. The two goals she scored couldn’t have been stopped by a professional goalie, that’s how hard she hit them.”
Goalie Gina Componile made four saves in goal.
Arroyo praised Lakewood’s increased intensity and improved overall play during the second half of the season. An example of that would be the season series with Lacey Township.
Lakewood suffered a 7-0 shutout early in the year, only to comeback and lose by a 3-1 margin in game two.
“Every single team that we’ve played a second time, we’ve done much better and been more competitive,” Arroyo said. “It’s a credit to the kids. Even though we haven’t got it done at the offensive end of the field, we are still playing well in the back.”
With the season drawing to a close, Arroyo and team members have set the goal of trying to win six of the last seven games. That would give the seniors who have been with the program all four years a total of 40 victories.
“That would be quite an accomplishment,” Arroyo said. “For this group to finish with 40 career wins and take six of the last seven games this year would say something about their character. We need to give the kids a goal to strive for. We want them to keep working hard until the season is over.”