Zoe Shepherd and Taylor Martin have been terrorizing defenses together since they were about nine years old.
When the duo hooked up again for the Marin Catholic High girls soccer team, offensive fireworks were almost inevitable. It took until their second year together with the Wildcats — plus the addition of Honor McFadden to complete the front line — but things have clicked in a major way this season.
Martin leads the MCAL in scoring by a comfortable margin with 20 goals through 14 games. For context, Redwood’s Lauren Foehr had the highest single-season total of the past decade with 22 goals in 2016.
Shepherd is second in the league with 16 assists — one behind Branson’s Eliana Prosnitz. Both players surpassed the high-water mark of the past decade, 13 assists — most recently achieved by Redwood’s Hannah Halford and Branson’s Callie Jones in 2018.
All three MC players rank inside the top seven this season in points (two for a goal, one for an assist). Martin is tops with 41, Shepherd third with 30 and McFadden seventh on 22 points.
“Each one brings some different qualities that, when you put them all together, make them an incredibly difficult trio to defend,” Branson coach Tyler Gottschalk said. “Obviously you can’t just focus in on one kid. They have so many different ways they can beat you. Zoe’s pace and ability to take players on one versus one and make players miss causes a lot of problems for opposing back lines. Taylor is so good at making runs into the box. The timing of it and spaces she gets into — she has a real nose for goal and a hunger to score.
“Honor on the other wing is just super tenacious, has pace, can strike a ball really well and for many teams in the league was an unknown heading into this season that caught some teams by surprise.”
Martin, a junior, is the longest tenured of the three. Shepherd played on varsity as a freshman last season and McFadden moved up from JV as a sophomore this year.
After scoring seven goals as a freshman, Martin announced herself with an incredible solo goal in the MCAL playoffs against Terra Linda. Martin beat several TL defenders with her dribble and slotted past the keeper to lead MC to victory.
“Her natural ability in front of goal is outstanding,” MC coach Andrew Shuter said. “You can coach these things but there are players that come around once in a lifetime that just have an eye for it. I can tell her and she can listen but at the end of the day she’s a far better player than I was or ever will be. She’s got that knack.”
Martin and MC regressed slightly last season, despite the addition of Shepherd. Martin managed six goals and MC just missed the MCAL postseason as the number of playoff teams had been trimmed from six to four.
This season, MC clinched a playoff spot with three games to spare, Martin exploded for 20 goals and Shepherd became a nightmare for opposing defenses.
“Zoe and I have been playing together since we were about nine years old so when she came to MC it was really easy for us to connect,” Martin said. “Zoe’s a really amazing player, very fast, very technical. We have this connection where she knows where I’m going to be, I know where she’s going to be and it’s easy for us to find each other and get some goals.”
Martin has scored hat tricks on five different occasions this season while the rest of the league has combined for four of them — one by McFadden in the first game of the season.
“One thing that (Martin) has a special talent at is her confidence,” Shepherd said. “When she gets her foot on the ball, she knows she’ll be able to score. When she starts dribbling, everyone around her knows she’ll be able to get her shot off.”
Most of Martin’s goals have come on assists from Shepherd, who is adept at drawing defenses to her then attacking multiple players with a combination of pace and ability on the ball that’s rare at this level.
“The runs (Shepherd) goes on are quite incredible and I’m just like ‘There’s five people on you. I’m not sure how you got out of that’,” McFadden said. “It’s really impressive. She’s great to watch.”
With the defense stretched, Shepherd can then play a ball to either Martin or McFadden into the open space created by the attention she commands.
“I want to say I had (Shepherd and Martin) at U-11 and U-12, it was the same kind of thing,” said Gottschalk, who coached the duo at North Marin United. “Those two kids had the hunger and desire, the athleticism all combined. They’ve scored tons of goals since the beginning playing off each other. The kid that’s on the ball requires so much attention. The combination of those kids is so hard to defend.”
The addition of McFadden this season made it that much harder for opposing defenses to take either Martin or Shepherd out of the game.
“Compared to the last couple of seasons of just having two of them, Honor brings a lot to the table with creating space for Zoe and Taylor,” Shuter said. “It’s been remarkable as a coach just putting them out there. They know what to do. They’re just game changers. That’s what we lacked last year, with both (Martin and Shepherd) getting marked all the time. Now adding Honor to that mix just makes us 10 times better.”
The trio has scored 36 of MC’s 42 goals this season and provided 21 assists. The best could be yet to come, with all three set to return as upperclassmen next season.
“We’re all super close,” Shepherd said. “I’ve known Taylor for a really long time and I’m just really happy that Honor and I have gotten to connect the way Taylor and I have.”
2020-02-05 01:43:11Z
https://www.marinij.com/2020/02/04/girls-soccer-marin-catholics-front-three-a-matchup-nightmare/
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