One goal enough for Bishop Guertin girls soccer in win over Bedford (video)

NASHUA – The potential for a rough start was there Monday night for the Bishop Guertin High School girls soccer team.

It was senior night at Stellos Stadium, and the Cardinals were playing a rival in Bedford, a team they hadn’t beaten in their last few tries.

Bishop Guertin coach Pat Mulcahy went to his goalie, Brooke Barrett, and told her she might have to step in the early going. The senior did just that, making a few big saves earlier before Marie Laplante netted the only goal of the game late in the first half to give the Cardinals a 1-0 win over the Bulldogs in Division I action.

Barrett made 10 saves, many of them  early in the first half, as Bishop Guertin (11-3-1) played through the emotions Mulcahy expected to see in his seniors’ final home game.

“She was outstanding, especially at the beginning of the game, she was brilliant,” Mulcahy said of Barrett, who transferred to Bishop Guertin after starting for Bedford the last three years. “I told her just get through the first 20 minutes so we can get the emotions out of us. Keep us in the game for the first 20 and she was brilliant.”

After the Bulldogs (11-4) had several opportunities early in the game, a bad bounce helped give the Cardinals their goal. The ball ended up coming to Laplante inside the box and she was able to put an arching shot over Bedford goalie Lauren Johnson for a 1-0 lead with 11:29 left in the first half.

“They were better in the beginning and they had the ball more, they had more chances,” Mulcahy said. “We capitalized on the one opportunity that we had. It was a nice goal by Marie. We were fortunate for sure.”

Johnson finished with five saves for Bedford, which had trouble getting a lot of uncontested shots, as Bishop Guertin’s Bryn Carroll shadowed the Bulldogs’ Saylor Clark for most of the game.

“We knew it was going to be tough coming in and I’m not unhappy about the way we played at all,” Bedford coach Michelle Winning said. “We made one mistake and they capitalized.

“We just talked about getting the ball out wide and trying to score off a cross to keep (Barrett) off the line. We didn’t really effectively do that. That’s how we were going to score. We knew we weren’t going to jam it down the middle and score.”

Bedford had perhaps its two best chances in the first six minutes of the game. In the fourth minute, a corner kick bounced around in the box before it found the foot of a Bedford player, but the shot was deflected and Barrett was able to collect it.

Two minutes later, Becca Rooney gathered a loose ball and made a nice move to get around a Bishop Guertin defender. Rooney went in on the goal alone, but Barrett made a diving save to keep the game scoreless.

“We knew it was going to be tough to score on Brooke (Barrett) and that was pretty much the ball game,” Winning said.

Neither team could get much going early in the second half, but when Bedford started pressing to get the tying goal, Bishop Guertin was able to keep the ball out of its own end, and even put some pressure on the Bulldogs’ defense.

“We did a good job those last 20 minutes,” Mulcahy said. “We’ve gotten better at changing our formation and defending better. A lot of it is just energy and winning those 50-50 balls.

“It’s a big emotional win for us because it’s against a rival. We worked hard and we played better in the second half, which I thought was going to happen.”

Both teams finish out the regular season this week, as Bedford hosts Exeter on Thursday and Bishop Guertin heads to Manchester Central on Friday.