Orono senior Anna Tesar has a nickname for her freshman teammate Nora Chouanard: Scora.
"She's so good about being in the right spot and reading where those balls are going to be," Spartans coach Erin Murray said. "I think that her and Tesar have a really good connection on that."
The duo made a connection with seven seconds left in the first half for the team's lone goal in a 1-0 victory over Rochester Lourdes in the Class 1A girls' soccer quarterfinals Wednesday at Farmington High School.
Tesar dribbled the ball around a few Lourdes players, found an open lane and slid the ball along the ground from the corner. Lourdes goalkeeper Paige Gallaugher dived for it but missed. Chouanard was there to put the ball into the open net.
"I just had to tap it in," Chouanard said. "She [Tesar] did a lot of the work."
Before the goal, Murray said, she was thinking about calming her teammates down at halftime, after seeing them play a sloppy, panicky first half.
"Then there's that huge rush of energy," Murray said. "So we wanted them just to be excited and positive."
The lead held up for the 10th consecutive shutout for Orono (17-3-3), which hasn't allowed a goal since a 1-1 tie at Waconia on Sept. 17.
