Grand Street Campus was minutes away from a loss that would have put its hopes of a second-straight division title on life support — but two quick scores in the final 10 minutes against Leon Goldstein on Monday made the difference.
Elizabeth Zahuantitla scored twice in the game — the second was the equalizer. Minutes later, team captain Jocelyn Aguilar scored the winner in the waning moments of the match to give Grand Street a 3–2 home victory on Oct. 12, and move to one win ahead of Goldstein, which has played one less game, at the top of the Brooklyn’s A-VII division standings.
“We work together to get the goal, and throughout the whole season we’ve been working hard for this win,” Aguilar said. “It’s a team, and we work as it.”
Grand Street (9–1–0) needed a victory to gain control of its destiny in the division, as it lost its previous meeting with Goldstein 2–1 on September 18.
The Dolphins jumped ahead in the 21st minute on a goal by Emily Ourdzine on a breakaway. Grand Street answered with a strike by Zahuantitla after a breakaway steal.
“Honestly, I felt really shocked that it actually went in, and it gave me more motivation to win this game,” Zahuantitla said.
Goldstein (8–1–0) recaptured the lead less than a minute later, as Ourdzine scored again on a rebound as the goalkeeper came out of the box and left an opening.
For much of the second half, both teams had plenty of prime scoring chances. Only the goaltending of Goldstein’s Chanel Jemott and Grand Street’s Josselyn Orellana, and some near misses off the crossbar kept the score at 2–1 in favor of Goldstein. Grand Street was determined not let it finish that way.
“Well, what I told my team with 10 minutes to go was to leave it all out on the field,” said Grand Street coach Andre Lamy. “Blood, sweat, and tears. Just leave it all out on the field — 100 percent for the last 10 minutes.”
Finally, in the 70th minute, Zahuantitla scored the equalizer. But they needed another to get that all-important tie in the standings. Then Aguilar scored the game-winner in the 77th minute.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do on defense,” said Goldstein coach Stephen Ryan of a unit that is dealing with some injuries. “I feel like I’m repeating the same things over and over on defense during practice. But one game at a time. We’ll try to close out the season with three wins.”
It was the Wolves’ toughest and biggest victory of the season, and the team showed off impressive resilience to find a way to win. With three games left, Grand Street is in good shape to earn at least a share of first place heading into the postseason.
“It shows that even when we’re losing, we still have faith in our team,” Zahuantitla said. “That even if we’re losing, we still have that motivation and support from each other. It pushes us even more to win.”
