Beating your archrival on senior night is always a fun way to end the season.
Rosewood took a 2-0 lead midway through the first half only to watch Princeton battle back to tie the game 2-2.
However, late in the second half, Morgan Haswell scored the game-winning goal to give Rosewood a 3-2 victory against Princeton.
“We played on Friday and Monday against Neuse Charter, and Neuse is the best team in the conference. We lost to them both times, but Monday was a battle, so the idea in this game was to not let up and play as hard as we can,” Rosewood head coach Eddie Maldonado said. “I’m pleased with the outcome.”
From the opening whistle, the Eagles wasted little time in attacking the Bulldogs, and in the 22nd minute, Taylor Gery slipped a shot past Princeton goalkeeper Emily Rubio.
Four minutes later, off an assist from Tufano, Riley Maldonado rifled the ball into the back of the net to give Rosewood a 2-0 lead.
“If you’re starting or sitting on the bench, your job is to try to get a little better every game, and I think we’re starting to find a little bit of an identity,” Maldonado said.
It looked like Rosewood would fly away with the game, but in the 30th minute, Anais Blanco scored a goal to cut Rosewood’s lead down 2-1 at halftime.
In the second half, the Bulldogs were determined to tie things up.
And in the 55th minute, Ruthie Hester fired off a free kick from 35 yards out that sailed over Rosewood goalkeeper Hailey Jacobsen’s head and into the back of the net.
“I told the girls ‘we just have to continue to play our game,’ and I felt like we had better chances to score than they did, so we just had to continue to create those chances and play together,” Maldonado said. “It’s easy to play to with the lead, but when you lose the lead, you have to dig in a little bit more, and we talked about that.”
During the final 25 minutes of the second half, both teams did everything they could to win the game.
But in the 65th minute, off a corner kick, Haswell collected the ball and tapped it into the net to give Rosewood a 3-2 lead.
The Eagles then held off the Bulldogs to get the win on senior night.
It was the final regular-season game for Tufano, Haswell, and Carolin Sanders. Maldonado said he could not have asked for a better group of seniors to lead the Eagles through such an unpredictable season.
“This senior group is a great group,” Maldonado said. “The leadership that they showed us was awesome. You can’t ask for a better group of players than those three seniors. They work hard every single day.”
