On October 9, 2018, the Colonia High School girls’ soccer team played a game against Woodbridge High School. They played their 3rd charity game for Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer which is a part of the Go 4 the Goal Foundation. Colonia won 3-1 against Woodbridge.

In 2011, the Go 4 the Goal Foundation created the program Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer. It intended to reach out to New Jersey teams in the fight against pediatric cancer. Three years ago, coach Carew was looking for charities to donate funds to for the girls soccer team first charity game. He received an e-mail from the Go4theGoal Foundation. “I tend to see signs in things so when they reached out to me and when I saw that e-mail it seemed like it was something that was meant to happen,” Carew believes in signs, “especially in athletics”. He said that this organization already had a platform and a portal in place, that made it an easy choice.

Coach Carew hopes to teach his players that “the world is bigger than themselves. Its bigger than what they see around them. They could have a major impact if they wanted to in a positive way. And there are more important things than just the basic things you experience on a daily basis.” And they did, the girls raised $2,800 prior to the game. The number rose even higher as JV players collected money in the stands during the game and the link to donate to their online page is open. The Link will be open one to two weeks after the game. The link for their Go4theGoal page is here.

This year’s game had a lot of supporters. The JV boys soccer team came to watch as well as many Colonia High students and parents. The game was very tense because Woodbridge and Colonia are rival schools. Carew believes himself to be very competitive and expects his players to be as well. So this match, although it was a charity game, the girls treated it as competition.  Carew explained “first and foremost Woodbridge is a divisional opponent. This is a rivalry game so the coach in me wants a win regardless.” This game counted as a divisional game so the players and Carew were hungry for the win. Both teams wore yellow shoelaces in order to support Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer.

The game started off really tense as Colonia and Woodbridge battled it out. The referee gave one of Woodbridge’s coaches a red card because he was yelling at the referees. The crowd cheered as the coach was escorted off the field by Mr.Lasala.  Casey Mulrooney (9) scored a goal at 2:45 in the first half. Then in the second half Woodbridge scored a goal at 29:54. After that, Colonia team captain Brianna Hendricks (11) scored a goal at 15:50 in the second half. Adrianna Munos (7) received a yellow card at the end of the second half for a foul push.  To end the game defender Julie Santos (15) scored a goal at 6:20 in the second half.