John Marshall holds off Pack, 2-1

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Rochester John Marshall capitalized on a pair of Austin errors and took a 2-0 lead into halftime for an eventual 2-1 girls' soccer victory in Big Nine Conference action Tuesday night in Rochester.

The Packers, not known for their second halves this season, made a strong comeback that fell one goal short. Lia Middlebrook made a run on a breakaway before being tripped up from behind by a Rocket defender. Middlebrook converted the penalty kick in the 72nd minute, but Austin's scramble over the final eight minutes came up empty.

"I would have to say we played really well tonight," said Austin coach Mark Raymond. "We made two errors in the first half that cost us two goals.

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"Going into halftime 2-0 was a little concerning because we have not been a second-half team, but tonight we made adjustments and played well in the second (half)."

Middlebrook's breakaway came on a feed from forward Emily Lorenzen, but the resultant goal would be the only one for Austin.

"We outplayed them in the remaining eight minutes, creating several good scoring opportunities," Coach Raymond said. "This will be a good game for us to look back on and make additional adjustments.

If we could have played with the same intensity for the whole game that we did in the last eight minutes of the second half we would have created more scoring opportunities."

The Packers, now 2-9 overall and 1-8 in the Big Nine, play Thursday at Faribault at 4 p.m.