Unionville gets two second-half goals to blank Downingtown East

By Serenity Bishop
sports@dailylocal.com

DOWNINGTOWN >> Whenever Unionville needed a word from their coach, Joe Ratasiewicz, this season, his speech has been simple “just play soccer.” In a hard-fought battle against Downingtown East on Wenesday, Jackie Hug just played soccer.

The Indians (9-2) traveled to DiSerafino Stadium in an attempt to continue their winning streak and remain in first in the Ches-Mont League American Division. Behind the leg of Hug, the Indians were able to overcome a slow start and win beat the Cougars, 2-0.

Downingtown East started the game off well in control. The Cougars kept control of the pace of the game and the position of the field and as a result, the first half was mainly played in front of Indians goalie, Katie Borlie. Unionville shook off their slow start towards the end of the first half, however, the game remained scoreless until Hug found teammate Alex Wilson for the first goal of the game with just under 37 minutes left in the second half.

“I received a good pass from Jackie,” said Wilson. “I saw an open goal and luckily it went in. At the beginning of the game it was kind of like ping-pong, but then we started to gain possessions by passing to the corners. Coach told us at halftime, to pass it to the corners because they had gaps and to settle it in the middle. So, when we started passing it to the corners we found open gaps and that’s what happen when I scored. Jackie passed it to the corner, got it back, passed it to me and then I scored.”

Downingtown East tried to stick around for as long as they could, but Wilson’s goal gave Unionville the momentum they needed to seal the deal and continue their winning streak.

Early in the game, Hug had a one-on-one with East goalie, Courtney Dunlop. At the last moment, Dunlop ran out of the net, slid and grab the ball before Hug could get a shot off. Fast forward to 25:14 left in the second half, the one on one matchup was there again, but this time hug kicked the ball before Dunlop could get there and pushed the score to 2-0.

“I was very upset at the first one,” said Hug. “I wanted to redeem myself and I seen an open gap and just played it as hard as I could.”

“They were a well-coached team,” said Ratasiewicz. “They put pressure on us. We were able to impose a little more will going forward which helped us, but we got a couple lucky goals, 2-0 we’ll take it. At halftime we talked about how we had opportunities in the first half, but we just didn’t connect. I told the them we were going to directly down the middle. Once we started going side to side and diagonal, I thought we could break through. Once they broke through, they realize hey this works.”

“I told them just play soccer.”  Ratasiewicz continued. “Don’t worry about what’s going on just play the game. Play what you know how to play and it’ll all work out and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. It’s been working out and I think that’s what they’ve been doing game to game.

Unionville 2 Downingtown East 0
Unionville 0 2 – 2
Downingtown East 0 0 – 0
Unionville goals: Wilson, Hug.
Goalie saves: Borlie (U) 3; Dunlop (DE) 4