For 67 minutes and 38 seconds, the Wilton and Brien McMahon girls soccer teams played to a 0-0 stalemate Thursday at Kristine Lilly Field.
Then the Warriors tallied three goals in the final 12 minutes and 22 seconds to come away with a 3-0 shutout victory over McMahon.
Give all the credit to McMahon goalie Gabby Ganino for keeping the ball out of the net and her struggling team in the game. Well, throw in a few lucky bounces and Ganino's defense for blocking some of the Wilton shots.
Still, it was Ganino who came up big with several key saves for McMahon, which dropped to 1-10 with the loss. Ganino made 19 saves in the first half alone and 35 for the game.
Wilton’s Rebecca Hersch finally put a shot past Ganino in the 68th minute, assisted by Jillian Lauricella. Lauricella took a throw-in from Ashley Vitarelli and served a pass to Hersch near the corner of the goal. Hersch tucked the ball in the corner for the score.
Wilton made it 2-0 with 4:32 to play when Hannah Maatallah put a penalty kick past Ganino after Lindsay Knutson was pulled down in the box. Knutson was injured on the play and had to come off the field.
Julie Kobyra finished off the scoring with a goal with 3:06 left in the game, assisted by Casey Tucker.
The Senators didn’t mount any scoring threats the entire game. In the second half, the ball didn’t cross the midfield stripe for the first 29-and-half-minutes of the period.
"We had good ball movement, but their defense played back to support their keeper, who had a very good game in net,” said Wilton head coach John Salvatore, whose team ran its unbeaten streak to seven games and is now 6-2-3 overall this season.