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“That was all Quinn Murray,” Williams said. “She put it perfectly on my stick and made it really easy.”
Stone Ridge (6-3, 5-1 ISL) entered the match having not surrendered a goal in league play all season, so Williams knew it would be important to set the tone. It took just 45 seconds for her and the No. 10 Cubs (6-2-1, 6-0-1 ISL) to do so, with Williams dumping in a score from just in front of the right post. She added her second goal during the final 20 seconds of the first quarter, rifling in an unassisted goal from deep.
Visitation, winner of the last three championships, now holds sole possession of first place in the ISL.
Stone Ridge’s pesky offense was aggressive throughout the contest, totaling 12 penalty corners. Visitation drew none. But the discrepancy didn’t matter.
“Way too many for us to not capitalize,” Gators Coach Gloria Nantulya said about the number of corners her team drew. “That’s our nagging thing right now. Everything else is great — our passing, our distribution, we move the ball well — it’s just the finishing.”
Right after the sides returned from the halftime intermission, the Gators found the breakthrough for which they had been looking. Stone Ridge’s sideline erupted as Hallie Slidell slid her team’s first score of the day past Visitation goalkeeper Shea Keaton.
There was a rejuvenated presence from the Stone Ridge sideline for much of the second half. Stone Ridge players’ cheers rivaled the continuous chants from Visitation’s crowd — many of which were led by a drum and a megaphone.
And early in the fourth quarter, the Gators not only had the energy, but they found the equalizer.
After a penalty corner, Kat Carr scored off an assist from Natasha Parker to knot the match at two, setting up an intense fourth quarter. The period finished with the Gators lining up for yet another penalty corner, but their ensuing shots were handled by Keaton and the Cubs’ strong defense.
Soon enough, the jubilant Cubs were pouring onto the field in celebration of Williams’s game-winner. And Murray’s assist.
“She made the selfless choice to make a pass for an easy goal rather than the big shot that could have been the game-winner,” Visitation Coach Haley Bowcutt said. “It was a team-winning goal.”
Visitation scored within the first few minutes of both regulation and the 7-on-7 overtime period. Reflecting on the game, both Nantulya and Bowcutt pointed to the tone-setting scoring as a takeaway looking ahead to their last five games of the regular season.
“We came out defensively similar to the first minute of that overtime period. Defensively, we weren’t prepared,” Nantulya said. “Once you do that, you set yourself a mountain.”
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