Comet nets a hat-trick

By Marc McGowan
THE Casey Comets picked up their first victory of the Women’s Premier League season in a dominant showing against Bendigo at Comets Stadium on Sunday.
Recruit Nicola Prins was the star with a hat-trick as the Comets thumped the Vipers 5-0 in their first home fixture of the year.
Casey had a loss and a draw from its first two contests of the season.
The club’s men’s assistant coach, Glen Bristow, assumed the female Comets’ coaching reins in regular mentor Debbie Nichols’ absence and would have been pleased with his charges’ display.
Prins opened the scoring in the seventh minute when she got on the end of an Alex Gummer pass and stuck the ball in the right corner of the net.
The two youngsters have already developed a strong understanding despite the season being only three games old.
There was never any doubt in the result after that initial score.
And Prins was in the action again soon after when she released Jeni Black with a great through ball and the latter was taken down inside the box.
Melissa Atherton made no mistake with the resulting penalty as Casey went 2-0 up after 21 minutes.
Midfielder Lisa Cloke provided the only dampener for the Comets when she left the field because of her ongoing right foot injury.
But replacement Algeria, who suffered a knee injury in the pre-season, impressed in her first appearance of 2009.
Casey continued to dominate proceedings, but it took until the shadows of half-time before Gummer added the hosts’ third after receiving the ball from fellow teenager Talia Silivestros.
Prins completed the rout with two further strikes after half-time to give her four goals for the year.
Defender Laura Croft was also a strong performer for the Comets.
Casey goalkeeper Emma Bracken had an easy afternoon and was thrilled with the team’s performance in the wet and blustery conditions.
“It was especially good knowing we needed a win and wanted to get some points on the board – we sort of put everything together,” she said. “The weather was crazy. What we would usually do is panic and chuck the ball up in the air. But all day we just kept it on the ground and played the feet, which made it a lot easier for us and obviously it showed because the passages of play we set up were brilliant.”
The Comets play Sandringham in a Monday night encounter at Cheltenham’s Kingston Heath Soccer Complex from 8.30pm.
Bracken believes last weekend’s effort bodes well for the Sandringham clash.
“The conditions didn’t suit, but we really just took it to them (Bendigo),” she said. “We were quite happy to go forward and push for it and now we have Sandy next week.That’s a good win to take into that game.”