Last month, Harmony had to struggle and claw its way to a 3-2 win over St. Cloud in the semifinals of the Orange Belt Conference girls’ soccer championship. Monday night’s regular season game between the two rivals provided far less drama as Gabriella Guzman scored twice for the Longhorns as they cruised to a 4-0 road win.
“The big difference between that first game and tonight was the control from our midfield. We did a good job, especially in the second half, we attacked space and passed the ball well,” Harmony assistant coach Doug Johnson – who was filling in for Scott Marlega — said. “We sometimes get in a bad habit of pushing the ball backwards, but tonight we attacked and it resulted in four goals.” Both teams battled to a stalemate in the first 20 minutes, with no serious scoring threat by either team. It remained that way until the 38th minute when a loose ball on the St. Cloud end did not quite reach the box. Rylee Husbands put a nifty touch past goalie Priscilla Rodriguez, slipped by her and buried the ball in the center of the goal for a 1-0 lead.
St. Cloud’s best chance to score came in the first five minutes of the second half on a breakaway but Alyssa Reynolds was bumped off the ball in traffic inside the box and failed to get a solid shot off. Three minutes later on a counter, Lily Glassburn took a cross and found the upper right hand corner of the net as Harmony took a 2-0 lead.
Guzman would score the first of her two goals in the 67th minute, scoring again off a counter attack from just inside the box. In the 75th minute she added her second goal with a blast from just outside the box.
Harmony led in both shots (9-5) and shots on goal (5-2) in pushing their season record to 7-3-2. It was also the Longhorns 10th win in their last 15 games against St. Cloud (10-2-3). St. Cloud fell to 5-7-0 on the season.
“We came off of the holiday break and played a really good game against a solid Davenport team (an 8-0 win) and I thought we were ready to follow that game up tonight, but for some reason we just didn’t bring it,” St. Cloud Coach Shawn Beck said. “Sometimes when you play these emotional rivalry games you end up beating yourself before the game even starts. I really was not worried about matching up with this team because we always seem to play them tough but it just wasn’t there tonight. The most important thing is that we can’t dwell on this. We have one more regular season game left and we need to use it to get ready for districts.”
“Right now we’re starting to play with some confidence. The tie with Melbourne before the Christmas break was a big game for us,” Harmony’s Johnson added. “And tonight was a solid game for us. We need to keep working hard and improving as districts approach.”
The Longhorns take to the field again tonight against Lake Howell, then end the regular season next week with games against Osceola and at Winter Springs next Wednesday and Thursday, before the district tournaments begin Jan. 25. St. Cloud hosts East River on Monday.
