- April 10, 2025
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The Bulldogs' Taylor Murphy tries to avoid having the ball stolen against Matanzas. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Jaryn Paley fights for the ball against Matanzas' Fatima Barham. Photo by Ray Boone
Matanzas' Allison Tuggle passes a ball downfield. Photo by Ray Boone
Matanzas' Mary Pickett dribbles the ball downfield. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Taylor Murphy scored two goals against the Pirates. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Ashley Puentes celebrates with her teammates after scoring a goal against Matanzas. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Lewinshy Gilot dribbles past a Matanzas defender. Photo by Ray Boone
Jaryn Paley knees a ball away from a Pirates player. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Francely Rodriguez and Matanzas' Breauna Savage battle for a ball. Photo by Ray Boone
FPC's Emily Puentes dribbles to ball toward the Pirates' goal. Photo by Ray Boone
After a 6-0 beating at the hands of Creekside on Nov. 20, the Bulldogs' Ashley Puentes was worried how her team was going to respond when it faced crosstown rival Matanzas at home nearly a week later.
The loss to Creekside was FPC’s first loss of the season, and the Knights routinely exploited the Bulldogs’ weakness on defense: goal-scoring opportunities off of set pieces.
“We didn’t want something like that to happen again,” she said.
And on the night of Monday, Nov. 26, Puentes and the rest of the Bulldogs made sure of it.
The Bulldogs steam rolled Matanzas 5-1. Puentes and Taylor Murphy led the Bulldogs with two goals apiece.
Puentes was the first to score, putting a header into the back of the net 12 minutes into the opening half. Murphy scored from well outside the box nearly 4 minutes later. The Bulldogs led 3-0 at halftime and were leading 4-0 before a Pirates goal at the 29:16-mark in the second half.
Puentes said the team had something to prove going into its game against the Pirates.
“They thought that they had a good shot at beating us because we lost a lot of players last year, but that just motivated us,” she said. “We felt like we had to bring it — again.”
The Bulldogs had several goals for Monday night’s contest. The main one was to limit the Pirates’ star scorer, Alyssia Paiz. The Bulldogs held her scoreless, as Paiz was rarely able to hold onto the ball against an aggressive Bulldogs defense.
In addition, Bulldogs coach Pete Hald was pleased with the team’s offensive output despite a high volume of shots that were either off-goal or stopped by Matanzas’ keeper, Emma Diaz.
“We’re not finishing when we should, but you can’t really complain about 5 goals,” Hald said. “We needed to have a good offensive game, and I think we did that.”
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