Centaurs pg 9 10-17-19
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It was a little bit of everything for the Woodstock Academy girls’ soccer team last week.
The Centaurs had hoped for better, but had settle for a 1-1-1 finish against the likes of Fitch, Stonington and St. Paul Catholic.
It means the Centaurs will have to do well in their remaining four ECC matches against East Lyme this week, Bacon Academy and Norwich Free Academy next week and the season finale against Plainfield on Oct. 29. If they want a shot at the postseason in the league.
Nothing is out of the picture yet for Woodstock Academy.
The East Lyme match could loom important for the Division I regular season title. The Vikings are 3-0-1 in the league while the Centaurs are 2-2.
Should Woodstock Academy be able to avenge a 4-1 loss at East Lyme earlier in the season and the Vikings lose to Fitch, the Centaurs would emerge as the divisional champs.
It’s not something that ranks high on the list of priorities for Woodstock Academy coach Dennis Snelling. “I don’t care about a title that we beat three teams to get. It’s nice to have it, but we’re really focused on getting into the (ECC) tournament and not missing out on that opportunity,” Snelling said.
The ECC has reduced the amount of teams who will qualify for the ECC tournament to four from the eight it was last year.
Which made the match against Fitch early last week important.
Unfortunately for the Centaurs, things did not go as planned. Woodstock Academy took 27 shots on goal. The Falcons had three.
Two of the Fitch shots went in; the Centaurs only saw one of their numerous opportunities cross the goal mouth.
“It was the kind of day where it felt like there was a wall over the goal,” Snelling said. “The goalie was saving everything because we were kicking them right to her. We hit the post and crossbar four times. We were all around it.”
The only goal for the Centaurs came off the foot of Lucy McDermott who took a feed from Peyton Saracina just 8 minutes, 18 seconds into the match.
The Falcons (3-7, 1-3 ECC Div. I) got the equalizer on a penalty kick after the Centaurs tripped a Fitch player in the penalty area.
The game winner also came in the first half with neither team able to find the net in the second.
The saving grace of the week came Oct. 9 when Woodstock Academy scored a 3-1 victory over Stonington on a rainy and raw afternoon.
Unlike the Fitch match, all of the Centaurs goals came in the second half.
Saracina broke a scoreless tie at the half just 7 ½ minutes into the second half when she took a pass from Grace Gelhaus (11 goals, 7 assists this season) and drilled it into the upper left hand corner.
What proved to be the game winner came off the foot of Emma Redfield just 2:41 later when she took a Saracina (12 goals, 5 assists) dish and lobbed it over the head of the Stonington keeper.
The insurance came when Gelhaus scored with 4:49 to play.
The week ended just about how it began. With a match where the ball just wouldn’t go in. The Centaurs had to settle for a 1-1 tie in Bristol with St. Paul Catholic. “The goalie was very good and we only had nine shots,” Snelling said. The last of those nine found the net with five minutes to play when Saracina scored on a Redfield (2 goals, 4 assists) pass.
St. Paul Catholic didn’t have a shot on goal until the final 40 seconds. That’s when a St. Paul Catholic player ran into Woodstock Academy keeper Rachel Holden but before she did, got enough behind the ball and sent it rolling toward the net. No one could catch up to it and it agonizingly found its way to the back of the net.
“It was a good game. I thought we learned a lot. I thought we could go 3-0 this week. It just didn’t go our way,” Snelling said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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