Physical Game As Falcons Beat Bucs

The Interboro girl's soccer team brought their own warm up music to Pottsgrove. The Black Eyed Pea's "Party All The Time" bumped from the Buccaneer's iPod powered boom box, "my life would be easy" echoing over the field.

Little did Interboro know, nothing would came easy Tuesday afternoon when the Falcons knocked off the Bucs 2-0 in a physically rough game.

What initially started as an up and down first half turned into the hosts running downhill while the Pottsgrove offense put Interboro under heavy pressure.

With control of the midfield and Tori Coyle and Hannah Steffenino handling the ball in the offensive end, it was all the visitors could do to keep Grove out of the goal. Strong goalie play and a smattering of offside calls against Coyle aided the effort.

The relentless attack finally produced points when Molly Chiodo knocked in a header off a throw in for a 1-0 lead.

The Buccaneers became more physical on ball in an attempt to change momentum, challenging hard and applying pressure on the defensive end.

Coyle found herself on the receiving end of such a tackle, hit the turf, recovered and took her frustrations out on a booming shot from just outside the box for the 2 goal lead.

After Coyle's goal, the Buccaneers appeared rattled and began to implode both on the field and the sideline.

The physical play was met by even harder challenges from the Falcons, who managed to outmuscle Interboro on their rare trips across the midfield line. Tensions ran high, with officials at one point stopping the game to have words with the Interboro sideline.

"Yeah, it was kind of chippy," said Falcons head coach Steve Mellor. "There was a lot of hard challenges on the ball and that's what the girls need to do … we're not looking to be chippy, but we're certainly looking to be hard and on the ball, and to put you under pressure."

That pressure found its way onto the Falcons in the second half, when Interboro pushed the pace on offense and desperately tried to erase the 2 goal deficit.

An errant clear by Falcons goalkeeper Allie Neel found its way onto the foot of a Bucs attacker, only to be blasted high. Later, with Neel caught out of position and a goal appearing imminent, a Falcon defender swooped in for the save and to keep the shutout intact. Neel had eight saves on the night on the 11 shots the defense allowed.

Despite playing predominantly in their end from the break till the whistle, Pottsgrove staved off the assault and rode their first half dominance to a hotly contested win.

"The first half, I felt we played pretty well," Mellor said. "We were able to score two goals there, and then you're looking for that third goal to kind of put the game away. We let them hang around; to their credit, they played a much better second half and we weren't able to get that third goal which made the second half a bit more difficult."