Stockdale's big win also milestone for McGowan
| Thursday, Feb 04 2010 10:06 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Feb 04 2010 10:06 PM
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Frontier's Kelly Nikkel, 12, gets a leg up on Stockdale's Caitlin Witwer.
Stockdale's Brooke Dickens goes up to head the ball in front of a host of Liberty players.
Erica Shelton has scored plenty of goals for Stockdale's girls soccer team and for various club teams, but this one had to rank right up there with the finest.
Shelton's knuckling rocket of a set piece found the upper right corner early in the second half to springboard the Mustangs to a 3-0 victory Thursday at home against Frontier.
The goal (a) broke a tense, scoreless tie; (b) clinched at least a share of another Southwest Yosemite title for 10-0 Stockdale, with Frontier at 9-2; and (c) gave Mustangs coach Janien McGowan a Central Section record with her 365th career victory.
"That was definitely exciting," Shelton said. "I've been working on them, and I had a couple of missed ones, but I knocked that one in."
"Was that beautiful? That was beautiful," McGowan said.
McGowan came into the year needing 14 wins to set a new section standard, and she got it in perhaps the most important game of the year to date for the Mustangs (14-4-3).
"It's not really about the record," said McGowan, who got a celebratory ice-water shower afterwards. "It's about these girls."
Shelton added a second goal three minutes after her first, taking a feed from Delani Curtis and half-volleying a shot into the corner. She narrowly missed a hat trick by wasting a chance late, but McKenna Reiser added a third goal.
"We made a couple of adjustments at halftime and told them to just keep going for it," McGowan said.
Frontier (14-8 overall) had two golden chances to score early in the game, but Stockdale goalkeeper Ilyssa Espiritu stymied both.
"When you have opportunities to score, if you don't put them in, you might not have them again," Frontier coach Max Bluemel said.
And Stockdale, which beat Frontier 2-1 in a tight game in the teams' first meeting, ran away from there.
"It shows why we're league champions," Shelton said. "We came out, and we fought. We were pumped."
