By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – Bedford North Lawrence finally discovered how to score, and went a little crazy.
After ending the season-long offensive slump, the Stars exploded for five second-half goals to bounce past Bloomfield. Jayella Filler, who ended the drought with a goal late in the first half, scored twice and added three assists as BNL broke through for its first win, a 6-0 conquest of the Cardinals on Thursday.
For the record, BNL’s first score came with 4:32 left in the first half. That meant the Stars (1-5) languished over 395 minutes of clock time before netting that elusive uno. They found out it was so nice, they did it twice, thrice . . . cinco more times. Ariba!
“It was a big relief,” Filler said. “It did take a while.”
After peppering Bloomfield goalie Amya Hilderbrand with a constant bombardment of shots, Filler shattered the glass ceiling – or in this case, the invisible barrier. She won a race to a loose ball in front of the net and poked the ball past Hilderbrand. And that opened the floodgates of the pent frustrations.
“It was definitely frustrating, taking shots and getting turned down,” BNL’s Rose Dusard said. “We saw that as an example, and realized we needed to follow our shots, anticipate the shot and crash.”
Filler started the second-half assault with a rebound deflection off a Caelyn Burke shot at 37:13. Cora Thomas converted a penalty kick (following a handball foul) at 5:53, and Burke made it 4-0 with a blast off the left post at 4:29.
Dusard capped the outburst with a rebound goal off a Filler shot at 3:50, followed by her settle-and-fire shot from close range with 16 seconds remaining.
“They kept shooting it right at the goalie,” BNL coach Bret Roberts said. “You’re not going to score if you’re passing it right to her. We finally found the open spots.
“They were definitely wanting a goal. Bad. They needed to do that, and now that we’ve done that, maybe we can continue to do that. Now they know they can do it.”
By contrast, the Cardinals were completely locked down on the BNL end. BNL goalie Madalyn Mason touched the ball only once, midway through the second half.
“It feels good to be on the other side of the scoreboard,” Roberts said.
BNL will return to action on Tuesday at Columbus East.
