Boxscore (all statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial)

Cambridge, Mass. (July 15, 2009) – Angela Hucles scored in the first half and the Breakers defense held on in the second in a 1-0 win over the Chicago Red Stars in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) action Wednesday night at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Mass.

The result ends the season series for the two teams with the Breakers winning 2-1-0. It also puts Boston (6-6-3, 21 points) in sole possession of third place in the standings, just two points behind second place Saint Louis Athletica. The Red Stars (4-7-5, 17 points) are now in a tie for fifth.

“I thought we were very good in the first half, and we knew that they would push out a lot more,” said head coach Tony DiCicco.  “We chose to stay with the 4-5-1 and looked for counter attack opportunities. I don’t think we got enough of those. I think we were a little bit too eager, and gave up the ball too much. They had chances to score. We bent, but we didn’t break. I’m really proud of the players.”

The game winner occurred in the 35th minute when Kristine Lilly sent a long ball into the box that Hucles got on the end of with a one touch into the back of the net. It was both Hucles’ second goal of the season and Lilly’s second assist.

The Breakers offense was quiet as the defense fought hard in the second half to prevent the tie. The Red Stars put on intense pressure from the very first minute when Marian Dalmy sent a cross to Lindsay Tarpley, but the shot was deflected just wide of the goal. They continued to control the game throughout the half as Chicago outshot Boston, 13-2.

The closest call came during a scramble in the box in the 64th minute, when Mary-Frances Monroe, in her first start of the season, saved the shutout when she deflected a shot from Jill Oakes on the goal line at the far right post.

Boston enjoyed the majority of the possession in the first half, and had numerous close chances leading up to their goal. Hucles almost scored earlier in the 22nd minute as she made her way to the net on a breakaway, but her shot was saved by Red Star goalkeeper Caroline Jonsson.

Jennie Nobis also looked especially hungry for a goal with several chances. In the 26th minute she got onto the end of a corner from Lilly, but it sailed right over the crossbar. She had another shot off a pass from Heather Mitts in the 29th minute, but Jonsson got on the ground and just got her hands on it in time for the save.

The Breakers are next in action on Sunday, to face FC Gold Pride in Santa Clara, Calif. It will be the third and final game of the series, in which the Pride lead 1-0-1. With the win, the Breakers (6-6-3, 21 points) hold on to third place in the WPS Standings, while the the Chicago Red Stars' loss (4-7-5, 17 points) allows the Washington Freedom (4-6-5, 17 points) to draw level at fifth place. 

The Chicago Red Stars travel to Piscataway, NJ. to battle Sky Blue FC in the battle for that important fourth-place position.  The game will be held at 4:30pm ET / 1:30pm PT and will be televisted on Fox Soccer Channel and webcast on womensprosoccer.com.

A full match report will follow.

Boxscore (all statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial)


POST-GAME QUOTES

Boston Head Coach Tony DiCicco

On today’s overall performance...
“I thought we were very good in the first half, and we knew that they would push out a lot more.  We choose to stay with the 4-5-1 and looked for counter attack opportunities.  I don’t think we got enough of those.  I think we were a little bit too eager, and gave up the ball too much.  They had chances to score.  We bent, but we didn’t break.  I’m really proud of the players.”
 
On new starts today...
“We had two players that started their first games today.  In fact, Mary-Francis Monroe got her first minutes today, and so did Abby Crumpton.  There’s some good stories here.  It means that players are working hard in practice and improving.  This gives me more options.  Hopefully that will help us down the stretch run, because in our next game against San Jose we are missing seven international players.  We’re bringing our entire roster, plus two players that I cut already.  One is Stacey Bishop and Erica Sutton, who is here now and has been training with us.  This will fill out our roster in San Jose.”
 
On the subs today...
“We didn’t want to sub for Heather Mitts because I wanted to get Jenni Nobis out because she was starting to fall out of the game.  We had to sub for Heather, and that gave Abby Crumpton a chance to get some minutes.  You don’t like to put a player in the game if she’s getting her first minutes and we’re under pressure, but she did a pretty good job.”
 
On Maggie Tomecka’s performance...
“Maggie did well.  I just think that we have been playing with not 100% of players committed to the fight, to the battle.  I played eleven players that I knew would be committed to the battle today, and Maggie certainly is a warrior out there, but she played well, so that was a real bonus for her.  Her heading presence is fantastic.” 
 
Spotlighting other top performers tonight...
“Mary-Francis Monroe played fantastic.  I thought there were a lot of good performances today on the field.  Jennie Nobis did a lot of good things and was dangerously consistent.  I thought Fabiana is starting to show what she can give us.  We will try to get her more minutes every game.  She’s so classy with the ball and escapes pressure so well.  She’s got the Brazilian flare.  Her speed isn’t all the way back, and when it is, she will be dangerous.”
 
On the loss last week...
“Last week against Sky Blue we lost a season series, but we still have a game against them.  Here we have won the season series against Chicago with two wins.  These are important games.  Now, we play the other five teams in the league for our last five games.  It’s incredibly important.”

Kristine Lilly

On scoring the first goal and getting momentum…
We’ve been down goals before and all we do is chase, chase, chase at the end of games. Now we realize we’re chasing games a lot harder, but we realize that if you’ve got a goal and you can get momentum, it just changes the mindset. That’s what we did tonight and we needed it. We’ve got five games left, so each game matters and this was a good win for us … against a good team too.

On knowing they’d eventually score…
You felt like it because we were putting some pressure, getting some chances close to the goal and we had the ball in that end, so we did and the feeling tonight was everyone was working together as a unit, and the last couple of games we’ve had moments of this. Tonight we had it for 70 minutes, I think they had some possession in there, where we were just weathering it a little bit, but that’s going to happen.

On the team winning without Kelly Smith…
Obviously Kelly’s a great player and we’re not going to take that away from her. She is the leading scorer, but I don’t think as a team we think, or Kelly thinks she’s the reason why we win. If you look at the games we have won with her, we’ve done it as a group and I think that’s the difference, if we play together defensively and in the attack, that’s what we have to do. Angela got a great goal tonight and it just happened for us, we had a couple of chances that would have made life a little bit easier for us, but maybe the next game.

Angela Hucles

On her goal….
The ball, actually we were trying to get in there and the ball was cleared out and (Lilly) had previously tried to shoot one, so I called for it just to let her know we were trying to get in the box. It was a great ball away from the goaltender and I just tried to stay away from the defenders to try and finish it, but it was a perfectly executed goal and I just finished it.

On building momentum…
I felt like the momentum was a lot better. We obviously are focusing on starting well, going after the win, not holding anything back. I feel like we were creating more chances than in the previous game, so I just wanted to keep that up and we went with it and we finally got one in

On winning while other clubs are tying…
Any time we can win and other teams are tying and not getting three points that helps us. We have six games left and we’re trying to get those six wins and not count on results of other teams, so that’s our main focus right now.

On contributions from new players…
I think what’s great is that we have players who have been working so hard for the entire year and they haven’t seen a lot of minutes. But you look at tonight, players like Mary Francis Monroe and Maggie Tomecka. These players were able to step in there and give solid performances and I think with National Team call ups, it’s going to give a lot of opportunity for players to step in and perform.