A hot, humid afternoon in beautiful Richmond Hill was the setting for a late-season matchup between the Diamond Divas and the Richmond Hill Grasshoppers.    Did I mention it was hot?  Most of the girls had been outside all morning already at Spring Fling.  The coaches were joking that our only chance of winning was to get a couple of early goals and prepare for the inevitable crash when they were completely worn out.

That’s exactly what happened.  Jinah took an expertly-timed pass from Kayla into the right side of the box and sent the ball chirping into the Grasshopper’s goal.    A short time later, Becca drew the defense to herself and fed a bouncing pass to Haley, who made sure no insect woulld stop her from adding to our lead.  2-0 Divas at halftime.  Thanks to great midfield play from Maggie (6 defensive stops) and Lexi (8), Sarah had to stop only 2 shots on goal.

In the second half, Jinah put on a clinic about how to play her position.  She stayed just in front of the last defender and on her side of the field.  When a ball was won at midfield by Shelby, Tiana or anyone else, they would send a ball behind the defense for her to run onto.  We had several dangerous chances from that play alone.  Unfortunately, Jinah was shooting at the wrong goal.  : )

With just a few minutes left in the game, Haley returned the favor to Becca and sent a pass through the Grasshopper defense - she didn’t give them a chance to respond and hit a quick shot into the net to finish the scoring.  Cat controlled the penalty area with 5 saves to keep the shutout intact.

Final score - Diamond Divas 3  R.H. Grasshoppers 0