Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – Liberty High freshman Alessandra Carvalhaes got a bunch of the big career first moments out of the way in the season opener last week.

Carvalhaes scored her first career goal and had her first career assist in her varsity debut last Tuesday in an 8-0 win at Central DeWitt.

On Tuesday Carvalhaes came up with another pair of huge career firsts.

The first overtime goal for Carvalhaes also served as her first game-winner as she scored off a Rilyn Breinholt cross nearly eight minutes into the first overtime to lift Liberty High (2-0) to a 1-0 win over Waterloo (1-1) on a rainy evening at Liberty Stadium.

“It was unexpected to me,” Carvalhaes said. “Rilyn said to me she was just hoping that someone would be there and I was glad I was the person to be there. I was surprised with my shot.”

Carvalhaes snuck a straight away shot past Waterloo keeper Makenna Chidester from just inside the box with 2:12 remaining for the game’s only goal.

The goal was the second of the season for Carvalhaes and gave the Lightning a 2-0 start for the third consecutive season.

“It builds confidence but what we need to stay away from is building ego,” Carvalhaes said. “Obviously the confidence of winning our first few games is really good but we need to keep a strong mindset and keeping playing the games.”

Senior keeper Sam Harvey posted a second shutout in as many games on Tuesday as Liberty High won a one-goal match against Waterloo for the second year in a row.

Last season Liberty High edged Waterloo 2-1.

“A few like a lot of it is the leadership, this year the seniors are really stepping up,” Harvey said. “We set goals and we all sat down and set down what we want out of this season and we are really working to reach those goals.”

Scoring opportunities were scarce for both teams on a rainy and windy evening.

Liberty High had several shots on goal in the opening 14 minutes with the win at its back but Chidester came up with saves.

The best chance for the Lightning after halftime came on a free kick from 35 yards out midway through the opening period that required a running save from Chidester.

Finally Carvalhaes had the breakthrough off a cross from fellow freshman Breinholt.

“I had a talk with Alli I could see she was a little down and I told her I know you got this,” Harvey said. “We are a team and we are playing for each other, we want it for each other and we are all working for success and to reach our goals.”

Winning close matches has become a regular occurrence for the Lightning.

After going 5-6 in matches decided by a single goal during its first two varsity seasons Liberty High was 5-2 in one-goal matches last season.

“Last year we were on the fortunate side of a lot of those close games, we had a couple of 1-0 victories, a few 2-1 victories and they are huge,” Liberty High coach Frank Fiordellisi said. “They are important in the growth of a program like ours.”

In its first conference test of the season on Tuesday Liberty High responded with another one-goal win.

“Getting some of those victories helps with the growth of our program but it also gives us confidence going forward,” Fiordellisi said. “It’s easy to put your head down if you lose some of these close games. It clearly wasn’t our best game, we are still shaking off some rust but we did enough to get that win and coming out on the top is important.”

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