GCGR girls soccer rallies for shootout win

   REINBECK – Carsen Hamann thought her Tuesday night would end at the north end of the soccer field in Reinbeck.
   The Grundy Center/Gladbrook-Reinbeck girls’ soccer team’s goalkeeper had done an admirable job of staving off Hudson’s swift attack, but a goal midway through the second half left Hamann and the GCGR defenders with hands on their heads.
   The way Hudson had been denying quality opportunities at the net nearly all game long, the way GCGR’s passes would always seem to agonizingly bounce away from would-be attackers, one goal seemed like it would be plenty.
   Just when time was slipping away, Hamann got a chance at redemption.
   Maddie McMartin buried a crossing pass from Sydney Mathews in the back of the net with just under two minutes left in the game to send Tuesday’s GCGR/Hudson matchup to overtime, and from there to a penalty kick shootout where a Hamann save and a well-aimed strike from GCGR’s Rachael Scarf earned victory for the Rebels in a 6-5 shootout.
   “The weight was lifted off me a thousand times over,” Hamann said of McMartin’s strike. “That shot made it a 0-0 game again and I had to just keep pushing forward. I couldn’t have done any of this without my team.”
The full story appears in the April 27 Grundy Register.