As long as the opportunities keep coming, the Mountain Pointe girls soccer team will be all right but on Thursday night Xavier beat the odds.
The Gators beat the Pride 2-1 despite the fact Xavier had only two legitimate shots on goal.
"But they made them count," Mountain Pointe coach Mark Wilson said. "I like the way we played. We outshot them and outplayed them but couldn't finish it."
Mountain Pointe, which had about 12 shots on goal, fell to 8-6 overall and 4-2 in power ranking matches.
The Pride kept the pressure on Xavier for the entire match, including a shot on the goal within the first 10 seconds of the match that hit a post, but were only able to finish with 21 minutes remaining. Sophomore Ashley Mutchek was able to corral a teammate's shot attempt that was initially stopped by the Xavier goalie for the Pride's only goal.
"They knew from the start that we weren't going to go away," Wilson said. "Our girls needed to find that out for themselves, too. They are No. 1 (and state runner-ups last year) and we know we can beat them."
The two squads meet again Jan. 12 at Xavier.
Contact writer: (480) 898-7915 or jskoda@ahwatukee.com. Follow him on Twitter @JskodaAFN.
