(Photo by Tim Pitts) caption: DRAMA KING: Hun School girls’ soccer junior star Monica King heads up the field last week in Hun’s 2-1 win over PDS in its season opener. King scored the game winning goal with three seconds remaining in regulation, converting a sweet feed from Gina Fiori. Hun, now 2-1, plays at Rutgers Prep on October 1 before hosting Penn Charter on October 3.

With King Providing Last-Second Drama, Hun Girls’ Soccer Gets Off to a Good Start

Bill Alden

As the Hun School girls’ soccer team battled Princeton Day School last week in its season opener, Monica King hobbled out of the game in the second half and took a break to stretch her aching legs.

“I guess I didn’t drink enough water; I kept getting charley horses,” said King, a junior midfielder for Hun, who used a camera tower behind the Raider bench to support her as she did various leg stretches.

King gamely reentered the contest and resembled a race horse as she made several runs through the PDS defense.

With the game knotted at 1-1 with five seconds left in regulation, King galloped down the left flank where she banged a sweet feed from Gina Fiori into the top of the net to give the Raiders a dramatic 2-1 victory as time expired.

After wiping away tears of joy in the wake of the post-game celebration, King said her moment of magic came after plenty of trial and error.

“I was running down every time. I was waiting for that perfect opportunity to happen but either I would miss or it would come short,” recalled King.

“The ball went through one of their girls and I just saw it; I had to take that shot, I just hit it and hoped it would go in.”

In King’s view, Hun’s diligence all afternoon paved the way to the victory.

“All our work really showed; everybody fought for every single ball, every 50/50 ball,” said King.

“We knew that we wanted this. We have had three weeks of preseason and we were ready. Every year we go into OT with PDS and we weren’t going to let it happen again.”

Hun head coach Ken Stevenson had a feeling that his team was going to pull out the game before overtime.

“I was reasonably optimistic that we were going to have something positive happen,” said Stevenson.

“I wasn’t 100 percent sure; it is our first game. I was very pleased with our effort; I was real pleased that we kept building plays up the field.”

Stevenson was not surprised that King ended up finding the back of the net.

“We were doing a really good job building it wide, particularly on Gina’s side,” explained Stevenson.

“When we were wide over there, Monica was open on the far side and so we started to hit longer switches. It took a while for it to add up but it did at the right time. I was happy not to go to OT.”

Stevenson was less than happy early in the contest as Hun fell behind 1-0 and then Raider senior star Blake Stockton fired a penalty kick high over the crossbar.

Stockton, though, made up for that miss as she connected on a brilliant volley for a goal with less than 10 minutes left in the first half to knot the game at 1-1.

“I yelled to her, now you have to earn one and she did,” said Stevenson, referring to the missed penalty kick.

“It was very impressive. While Gina was involved that was a tremendous individual effort by Blake on that first goal.”

Hun got a tremendous individual effort from senior defender Fiori, who was a force from the back all day long.

“Gina was so good at having the ball at her feet and attacking the space,” said Stevenson, whose club topped Mercersburg Academy 4-0 last Saturday to improve to 2-1 on the season “She was making somebody commit to her and then using her options.”

The Raiders needed to display some committed soccer in order to best PDS in a local rivalry game that has been tight on an annual basis.

“These guys always play us tough, every year it is a nailbiter,” said Stevenson, whose club plays at Rutgers Prep on October 1 before hosting Penn Charter on October 3.

“That’s a solid team. Our work effort from the preseason really came through.”

King, for her part, believes the Raiders have what it takes to come through with some big things this fall.

“We have our six seniors who are all amazing; we want to do it for all of them,” asserted King. “This is our year hopefully, knock on wood. We want to make a mark on 2009.”

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