Turner stands tall as Pirates fend off Raiders in cross-river battle

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The Hannibal girls soccer team’s potent offense gave it the lead.

Senior goalkeeper Ava Turner made sure that lead stayed in tact. 

Turner stopped each of the first eight shots she faced, several of which came from point blank range, as the Pirates beat Quincy Notre Dame 5-1 Tuesday at the Veterans Sports Complex.

“Ava made so many big saves throughout the game that kept that from being like a 4-4 or 4-3 type of game,” Pirates coach Eric Hill said.

One minute after Aly Falconer gave the Pirates a 1-0 lead 2:20 into the game, Turner faced her first test and passed with flying colors. Raiders junior forward Addie Flesch got in behind the Pirates’ defense with only Turner between her and a game-tying goal, but Turner denied Flesch to keep the Pirates in front.

With 2:30 left in the first half and the Pirates now leading 2-0, Turner again denied Flesch on a free run into the box, and Sage Stratton’s rebound bid trickled just wide to the left.

“I’d say I was pretty locked in, a lot of adrenaline going, definitely, not knowing when those girls would pull shots,” Turner said. “They have the ability to just turn and shoot, so I just had to stay on my toes and stay locked in.”

Turner made five more saves in the second half and kept a clean sheet until Flesch forced in a rebound shot with 4:44 left that made it a 4-1 game.

“It’s tough, but I can’t blame my girls,” Turner said of losing the shutout. “We were all tired from yesterday, and it just happened. And it’s not like she’s a bad player. She’s an amazing player. She’s one I watch out for all the time, so I know she has that capability.”

Turner has notched 61 shutouts in her career, but Tuesday’s performance was one of the best Hill has seen in the three-plus seasons Turner has been in net for the Pirates.

“To me, this was her best game of the year and one of her better games in her high school career, honestly,” Hill said. “I know she’s frustrated we gave up the shutout and she wasn’t able to hang onto that, but she did a great job. They could have had a couple goals in the first half, if not more, and she came out and made good saves. Even on the goal they scored, she made the initial save, and we just weren’t able to pounce on it and get it cleared out quickly enough.”

Falconer was just as impressed.

“Oh my gosh, she had such a great game,” Falconer said. “That was probably her best game of the season so far. She made some huge saves for us, and I think it was really starting to get into their head. She played phenomenal.”

Martin concurred.

“Ava was phenomenal,” Martin said. “She had so many big saves. She really did save us.”

The Pirates carried a 2-0 lead into halftime. Martin extended that lead to three on her second goal of the game with 29:19 left. Martin took a pass from Maggie Routh in tight quarters near the edge of the 18-yard box and tucked a shot past QND goalkeeper Tessa Porter.

“They did a really nice job of connecting in the final third,” Hills said. “Sometimes we get a little too sped up and will send a ball, and we can’t seem to string together four or five passes, but in the final third tonight, I felt like we were doing a pretty good job of stringing passes together, and that’s what was opening things up.”

A week after scoring her first career goal, freshman Peyton Harsell took a pass from Falconer on the right wing and fired a shot from 15 yards out that clanked off the bottom of the crossbar and into the back of the net to push the lead to four with 15:42 left.

“I got the ball from Ashley (Davis), and Peyton was out on the wing,” Falconer said. “She was pretty wide open. I just had to give her a little bit of a through ball, and she found the back of the net.”

Malia Stolte tacked on a fifth tally with 1:31 left.

“We didn’t really perform well the first 20 minutes, and they made us pay,” QND coach Mark Thomas said. “They had a couple chances and put them away. We had chances, and we didn’t put them away.

“They moved the ball well tonight, and we probably gave them a little too much space. When you do that, good players will punish you.”

Hannibal (7-2) returns to action on Thursday with a road North Central Missouri Conference game against Fulton before a rematch with QND on April 17. QND (4-2-1) will battle Quincy High School on Friday at Flinn Stadium.