Saints open season with a draw against Byron

Thursday night, the St. Peter girls soccer team took to the pitch for the first time this fall as they hosted 2023's Section 1AA runner-up, the Byron Bears.

In a battle between two high-level AA programs, strong defense set the tone from the word go as the Saints and Bears ultimately ended the game with a 0-0 draw.

"Personally, I think we did good as a team even though we have a lot to improve on," said senior defensive stalwart Sam Madden after the game. "Obviously, it's our first first game with some of these younger girls, so it's gonna take a lot of improvement, but we know what we have to work on and we're gonna start working on that."

Throughout the opening minutes of the match, St. Peter put a lot of pressure on Byron but as the half moved along, the momentum slowly shifted in favor of the bears as the wind aided their offensive push. Despite the momentum change, Madden organized the defensive line and kept the pressure off sophomore goalkeeper Morgan Rogers.

When a shot did make its way to Rogers, she showed a lot of confidence in challenging at the point of attack and cutting off angles and when the halftime buzzer sounded, the game had shifted into a midfield battle.

Throughout the second half, the midfield game was fierce with neither team getting any kind of advantage but the play of the night came with 16:20 remaining in the second half. The Bears, having earned a corner kick, put a perfect ball into the box where an attacker got a clean redirect towards the net. Rogers proved up to the task though, making a great read and stuffed the shot with both hands despite the impressive look from Byron.

"Honestly, it's a sigh of relief," Madden said of Rogers' performance. "If we defenders make a mistake, we know that Morgan will try her best. She definitely needs a lot of credit because tonight, she was amazing."

As the game entered the final 11 minutes, space started to open up and St. Peter put together several solid scoring opportunities and shots on and around the goal, but the Bear's keeper was also big down the stretch, making several key saves to ultimately hold on and force the draw.

The Saints are scheduled to return to the pitch Saturday, Aug. 24, when they travel to Pine Island to face PIZM with kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m.