GIRLS SOCCER: M-A Falls 1-0 to Red-hot Aragon

The Score: Aragon 1, Menlo-Atherton 0.

The Star: Aragon High’s Rachel Killigrew, who timed her leap perfectly to head in a shot off a free kick from Kat McAuliffe for the lone goal of the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division game.

The Turning Point: Aragon goalie Ashley Lentz’s save in the eighth minute off of a shot by Menlo-Atherton’s Lindsay Keare seemed to wake up the Dons as they started keeping the ball in the Bears’ half of the field for most of the game afterwards.

The Quote: "We had a few good breakaways, we just didn’t put them away.” – Menlo-Atherton coach Paul Snow.

What's Next? Menlo-Atherton heads to Carlmont on Tuesday for a 3 p.m. game.

The Bottom Line: Menlo-Atherton needed a win, or at least a tie, on Thursday and now the Bears are faced with a tall task: Win three of their last four games and hope fourth-place Burlingame stumbles down the stretch. Otherwise, the Bears will suffer the same fate as last year: Come agonizingly close but in the end wind up being on the outside looking in come playoff time.

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The Menlo-Atherton High girls soccer team is hoping recent history isn’t about to repeat itself.

Unfortunately for the Bears, Thursday’s 1-0 Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division loss to Aragon at Menlo-Atherton High did very little to bolster their hopes to avoid missing the Central Coast Section playoffs again this year.

“Now we’ll need to win three of our last four games,” M-A coach Paul Snow said after the loss to a red-hot Dons’ team that has now won six straight games after a 0-2-2 start to the league schedule and is now 10-2-4 overall.

“We’ve got our mojo back,” Aragon head coach Will Colglazer said.

Thursday’s game was a tightly contested defensive struggle with very few scoring chances presenting themselves to either team. Menlo-Atherton (8-6-2, 3-6-1 PAL Bay) had the first chance in the eighth minute as Lindsay Keare fired a shot on goal. But Aragon keeper Ashley Lentz collected the shot and kept the Bears off the board.

The near miss seemed to ignite the Dons’ offense as they kept the ball in M-A’s half for most of the game. A free kick in the 22^nd minute by Kat McAuliffe deep in the Bears’ half found Rachel Killigrew in front of the net and the co-captain found the back of the net for what proved to be the only score of the game.

“This game was a grind,” Colglazer said. “Our captains really stepped up for us.”

M-A picked up the pace in the second half and generated some late breakaways, but the Dons’ defense never let the Bears seriously threaten the goal.

"We had a few good breakaways, we just didn’t put them away,” said Snow. “That one set piece did us in.”

Aragon, No. 5 in , hosts No. 4 San Mateo on Tuesday and the Dons will be looking to avenge their earlier loss to the first-place Bearcats and to close within two points of the league leader.

Menlo-Atherton, sitting in sixth place, will travel to fifth-place Carlmont on Tuesday. The Bears need a very strong finish to have any hope of making the playoffs as an at-large team. The Bay Division’s top three finishers are automatic qualifiers.

“I’m optimistic that we can make it in,” Snow said.

Last year, the Bears were fifth in the PAL Bay and just missed qualifying for the postseason by a handful of points.

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Aragon 1, Menlo-Atherton 0

At Menlo-Atherton

Scoring: A: R. Killigrew (McAuliffe) 22:00.

Records: Aragon 10-2-4, 6-2-2 PAL Bay. M-A 8-6-2, 3-6-1.