For the second week in a row, Charge forward Marinette Pichon generated all of the offense, scoring Philadelphia's only goal in a 1-0 effort against the Boston Breakers. In fact, Pichon has now scored four of the last five Charge goals. For her efforts, Pichon has taken a pounding at the hands of her opponents as the 5,465 fans at Villanova Stadium witnessed Saturday night. Witness the comments from Boston Head Coach Jay Hoffman. She [Pichon] is a good player, she's very smart...she reads the game pretty well [and] she tries to pull herself away from the space...to be perfectly honest with you, I said to the young lady [an unnamed Boston defender] after the game, she should have fouled her...she should have pulled her down, we'll play with ten, take a red card...then it's not a goal and you still have a chance.
Coming into the game, the Charge's record was 10-1-0 when scoring the game's first goal and 8-0 when carrying a lead into halftime. On the opposite side of the ball this season, Boston is winless in (0-1-3) when their opponent scores first. The Breakers hold the same record when trailing at the half.
Pichon's goal at the five minute mark put Philadelphia in the driver's seat and Boston in the unenviable position of trying to mount a comeback against a team that obviously protects a lead. A long pass from Philadelphia's Erica Iverson to Pichon, who then had to fight off two Boston defenders, resulted in a Pichon's fifth goal of the season on a close range shot past goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc. It would be Philadelphia's only shot on goal in the first half. The long pass became Philadelphia's weapon of choice Saturday night creating multiple scoring opportunities for Pichon and the Charge.
Sometimes the opponent dictates the style that you have to play and they were really trying to compact the space that we trying to play in so what that means in our eyes is the space behind them...we worked on that this week trying to get [Lorrie] Fair in behind the back players with some penetrating diagonal runs and I think that she did a pretty good job at it. Benson and Mitts in particular served her pretty well. In my opinion, the back four today was absolutely outstanding. I don't think we could script it any better said Charge Head Coach Mark Krikorian
Boston's best opportunity to tie the game came in the final minutes of the game. Kate Sobrero's shot in the ninetieth minute within 10 yards of Charge goalkeeper Melissa Moore was adeptly stopped by Moore (the league leader in goals-against-average, winning percentage, and wins) and WUSA scoring leader, Maren Meinert's shot in injury time went high. You have to be aware of their forwards...they try to split us all the time and that's one thing we focused on this week said Philadelphia's Jennifer Tietjen.
The Philadelphia Charge plays six more games at Villanova Stadium. To order your season tickets, Fan/Family packs, group tickets, and or birthday packages, call the Charge ticket office at 215.467.GOAL. You can also order single game tickets by calling Ticket Master at 215.336.2000 or 856.338.9000 or 302.984.2000.
Be sure to tune in The Topcat & Taggart Sports Show each and every Sunday from 4:30-5:30PM. Each week, your favorite player will appear on Inside the Charge. The studio phone lines are 856.227.1360 and 856.232.7077.
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