After Tough Loss, Looking Forward to Hill

Varsity Girls’ Soccer has come a long way this year. The Big Red had a bumpy start maintaining their 3-6 record just one month ago. However, the team has since found new motivation and now holds a much-improved 8-7-1 record. Never relinquishing its determination and hard work ethic, the team has bounced back to produce a six game winning streak. Of particular importance in this streak was their victory over Peddie, who defeated the Big Red twice last year and took their bid to the state championships. After their fight back to the top, the team earned a shot at the Prep A State Championship and the MAPL Championship.

The Prep A State Championship game, which took place this past Sunday against the Pennington School, proved to be an uphill fight for both teams. Lawrenceville was the first to score against the 8-time defending championship team, but by half-time Pennington rebounded and took a 3-2 lead. Lawrenceville tied the game 3-3, and blocked goal shots for most of the second half. Unfortunately, in the final ten minutes of the match Pennington managed to get past the Lawrenceville defense and score a goal that earned the team its 9th straight Prep A State Championship win.

Big Red was a force to be reckoned with despite the disappointing results. After its devastating loss to Pennington 6-0 in the beginning of the season, Lawrenceville preformed valiantly and greatly exceeded expectations in the second match-up. Reporter George Gorman, described the game as “a match with 80 minutes of non-stop, end-to-end action” in Monday’s issue of The Trentonian.  Midfielder Abby Goodrich ’14 summed it up, saying, “We came out really strong from the start and we really wanted it. We made a few mistakes, but we kept on fighting until the final buzzer. I’m so proud of our team. We’ve come so far this season.”

However, Big Red’s season isn’t over yet. This Saturday, November 12, the team faces off against the Hill School for the MAPL championship title. After last year’s overtime loss to Hill at the home turf, the team is ready to end its season strong. Co-captain and goalie Drea Meisnieks ’12 referred to this week as “revenge week,” as they will be “maintaining the hype and intensity to win on Saturday and make up for last year’s game.” Co-Captain Jess Vocaturo ’12 added, “We plan to keep up the focus in practices this whole week because it isn’t over, but we also want to have fun. This is our last week, so we need to keep the energy high.”

Coach Tom Dillow shared his take on the season: “We’ve shown a lot of character to fight through adversity and injury. We’ve been working hard to get better and the team is hitting their stride when it counts the most. It’s not about how you start your season, it’s about how you’ve finished.” Big Red Girls’ Soccer is looking forward to finishing strong this weekend in the battle against the Hill School for the MAPL Championship at 1:30 p.m. this Saturday.

-Kristen Gatti ’13

Posted by admin on November 13, 2011. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry