Thomas Dale Cruising

by Seneca Contomanolis
DigitalSports Richmond

Thomas Dale just keeps cruising along.

The Knights remained undefeated with a 6-0 victory over visiting Prince George on Tuesday night.

Tiffany Vandecker scored two goals while Carrie Jaeckle, Loren Favale and Julie Robertson each had one for the Central District regular season champs, ranked fifth in the DigitalSports Top 10. The other score came from a Royals' own goal.

"It has been fun to watch this team play," Thomas Dale coach John Kabler said. "They have been very tight all year and have played through a lot of injuries."

The Knights squeaked by Prince George 3-2 last month when they played. This time it was all Thomas Dale (12-0 Central, 14-0) as they controlled the ball for much of the match and continually attacked the goal.

Vandecker, a junior forward, notched her first goal less than seven minutes into the match when she put back a Kendall Sanders blast that rebounded off of Royals goalie Jennifer Dooley.

At the 25:30 mark Jaeckle scored on a one-timer in the box from an assist from Robertson. Then with under two minutes left in the first half Favale found the back of the net off a Jaeckle corner kick to push the Knights ahead 3-0.

"I try to put it in around the PK line and not to high so it won't go by everbody," Jaeckle said of her corner kick.

Thomas Dale continued to pour it on in the second half against Prince George (8-3-1, 9-3-1).

Vandecker sliced through the defense and put her team up 4-0 ten minutes into the half with her second goal. The Prince George own goal came with about 20:44 remaining when a Jaeckle corner bounced off a Royals player.

And then Robertson closed out the scoring by going coast-to-coast with some impressive dribbling to tally the last mark with 5:59 left.

"Julie and Tiffany up top just work so hard and well together," Jaeckle said.

One regular season match against Hopewell remains for the Knights. A victory would be another check mark on the list of things the team set out to accomplish this year.

"We set several goals," Kabler said. "One was to win the Central, we did that. The other was to go undefeated. The big goal, what we have been talking about and stressing, is we want to go to states."

Prince George  0 0 - 0
Thomas Dale    3 3 - 6
TD: Vandecker 2, Jaeckle, Favale, Robertson, own goal
Saves: Dooley (PG) 14; Dowlen (TD) 5
Records: Prince George (8-3-1 Central, 9-3-1) Thomas Dale (12-0, 14-0)