English girls soccer loses to Revere 2-1

LYNN – Under the lights of Manning Field, the English girls played host to the undefeated Revere Patriots. Revere won, 2-1.The Bulldogs came into the game with a 1-2 record (0-1 in the NEC). Coach Ed McNeil was upbeat after defeating Classical 4-0 in the consolation game of the Lynn City Tourney.Revere, under first-year coach Natalie Lyons, defeated Everett in a nonleague game and tied Classical 3-3. She said, “The league is new to me. It will take a while to get used to the teams. We only have 18 girls on the team, pretty much equally divided by grades.”The Bulldog defenders made two mistakes, and it paid off for the Patriots.At the 4-minute mark, an errant English clearing pass was intercepted by Revere freshman midfielder Marisa Parent, who broke into the arc, went left and lofted a shot over Brittany Goulet, the English goalie, into the top right corner of the net. Revere made the score 1-0.Five minutes later, it was déjà vu all over again as Parent intercepted another clearing pass, broke into the arc and beat the keeper low right. After 9 minutes of play the score was Revere 2, English 0.For the remaining 31 minutes of the half, English controlled the game. The Revere keeper, freshman Melissa Adriani, made several tactical mistakes, but the ball never bounced to an English player. English would make many short passes to get the ball into the Revere end. The Bulldogs would get as far as the Revere area but could not finish the play, and the Revere defenders would clear the ball. The half ended with Revere in the lead, 2-0.The second half was played in the same fashion. Things changed in the sixty-third minute, when the Revere keeper was in a collision with an English striker and had to be removed from the game. Revere then went more defensive to protect the substitute keeper, Ariana Giunta. English, throwing caution to the winds, attacked with its strikers and midfielders. This left a counterattack wide open. Revere broke out of its end and attacked the English goal.The Bulldog keeper, Goulet, while making a sliding save, caught a knee to her head. After being attended to by the trainer, she was replaced in the net by Cara Crowley. All this took place in the 70th minute.Two minutes later, Megan Forti intercepted a Revere clearing pass and beat the keeper to make the score Revere 2, English 1. The game ended with no further scoring.After the game, Ed McNeil said, “We controlled the game, except for two breakdowns in the beginning of the game. We had 12 corner kicks to their 1.”He continued, ” For most of the second half, we were in their end and we hit everything but the back of the net.” Revere’s record goes to 2-0-1 and English drops to 1-3-0.