Comets snatches late draw

By Marc McGowan
CASEY Comets Soccer Club took it right up to titleholder Box Hill on Friday night before escaping with a 2-2 draw in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) at Wembley Park.
The Comets have had a slow start to the 2007 season, but showed signs in round seven that they may just be ready to emerge from their slumber.
Box Hill is not the dominant force it was last year, but had only been beaten once heading into last week’s contest with Casey.
Comets coach Deborah Nichols made eight positional changes to shake things up, with two forced alterations coming through the unavailability of star midfielder Leigh Terek and a facial injury to goalkeeper Emma Bracken.
The clash pitted Rachel Lamb, Sarah Fitzgerald and Lucy Kapusta against Box Hill’s gun midfield trio of Anthea Vardarkas, Georgia Koutrouvelis and Selin Kuralay.
Vardarkas and Koutrouvelis won WPL player of the year in 2005 and 2006 respectively and have both represented Victoria, while Kuralay has played at international level.
An attacking foray by Casey just 10 minutes into the encounter resulted in Lisa Cloke being brought down in the box and penalty specialist Fitzgerald made no mistake with the kick.
The Comets created several more chances in the first half, but Daniela Digiammarco scored the equaliser for Box Hill just before half-time to leave the match on a knife edge.
Katrina Smith snatched the lead for the latter courtesy of a corner in the second half. With little time left in the game, Smith’s goal looked to be enough.
But Casey had been on the offensive all night and a dangerous cross by the Comets into the attacking area resulted in another penalty being awarded to them following a Box Hill handball.
It came with just five minutes left, and Fitzgerald calmly stepped up for the second time and put the ball safely into the back net to put the tussle back on a level pegging.
Neither side could slot the winner in the limited time left to leave the teams with a point each.
Nichols was thrilled with her squad’s display and hopes it is a sign of things to come.
“It was a great result. We had a bad run of three or four poor games leading into this one, but they just rolled their sleeves up and had the right attitude,” she said.
“We had other good results against Heidelberg and Ashburton, but they were a few rounds ago now, so I’m hoping this is a turnaround in form.”
It leaves Casey with an inviting draw in the next four rounds where they face Bendigo (11th), Uni of Melbourne (10th), Preston (5th, but have been trounced over the last two weeks) and bottom-side WVSA.
The Comets’ reserves showed encouraging form in going down 3-1, while their Girls 15 Metro A team were victorious 2-1.
“Our reserves lost, but are improving, but our under-15 girls beat the top side, which is terrific for us,” Nichols said.
“Our under-15 team has a couple of 12 and 13-year-olds and they’re our future, so it was a great result.”
Casey returns to Comets Stadium on Sunday to host the Bendigo Vipers, with the reserves up first at 11am before the seniors shoot for success at 1pm.