Cape 20 Something

Women's Soccer: Falmouth heads to finals for a rematch with rivals

Falmouth 5 - Lower Cape 2

   Adrienne Okon playing rock solid defense. She's one of the oldest players in the league and still one of the toughest!

With a hatrick and a third (4 goals) Jenna Rabesa proved that she was back on her game last in Falmouth’s semi-final win against Lower Cape. She had to leave Tuesday's game eary due to illness.

Usually when playing Lower Cape, despite the score, it’s very evenly matched, but last night Falmouth attacked from the flanks and up the middle, played tough defense, and basically dominated most areas of the field.

Rabesa started out the scoring in the 17th minute when she just took the ball herself and bombed a shot right through the LC keeper's hands. Falmouth started getting the hang of how to work through the LC defense, which appeared to be a flat back. They continued to penetrate with little chips over the top all night. Then, 34 minutes in Rabesa got her second off an unassisted play on the top of the 18 where she just snuck through a crowd of LC jerseys and somehow through the wall of yellow launched a shot up and over the keeper into the back of the net. With just minutes to play in the first half, she got her hatrick with another nice shot.

Falmouth went into halftime feeling pretty good with a 3-0 lead.

Again, Rabesa started off the scoring just five minutes into the second half with another shot lofted up and over the keeper's reach, making it 4-0. But then Falmouth started to get a little bit complacent and stopped attacking as hard and often. They dropped one of the two forwards back slightly to help out on defense, as one of the LC backs kept pushing further up to help on offense as Falmouth’s goals piled up. As the home team reacted to this change in formation for LC, they lost their own shape and got a couple of goals scored on them in the middle of the second half, now with a score of 4-2.

After this, Falmouth started attacking with speed and numbers again, with nice through balls to beat the flat defense and little chips over them so their speedy front runners could chase down the ball. The changes were effective because Falmouth was able to tally up one more goal before the final whistle blew. A great chip over the top led Lizzie Allen right down the middle of the field, blowing by 3 defenders, then she ripped a great shot into the back of the net bringing the score to 5-2 with about 10 minutes remaining. With only a few minutes remaining LC had an excellent opportunity with a arching cross from the outside of the field and a nice redirection to put the ball passed Falmouth’s keeper, however, this goal was discounted as the scorer was very much offside.

So the 5-2 score would stand and be plenty to send Falmouth to the finals to play their league rivals, Mashpee, Tuesday at 6 PM at Mashpee High School.

Images right: (top) Lizzie Allen battling passed a LC defender.  She topped the scoring last night for Falmouth's 5th and final goal; (bottom) Falmouth defending an LC corner kick.