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Kicks
Woodstock Academy’s Brynn Kusnarowis kicks the ball away from oncoming Plainfield player Kate Carleson in their ECC semifinal match last week. Photo by Marc Allard.
Soccer team
eyes tourney
success
It’s a different scenario for the Woodstock Academy girls’ soccer team this season.
For the past two years, the Centaurs have gone into the Class L state tournament off an emotional high following an ECC tournament championship.
That won’t be the case this week.
The 12th-seeded Centaurs went into a Class L state tournament first-round match with No. 21 East Haven Nov. 12 (the game ended too late for this edition) fresh from a couple of days off after they fell to Plainfield in an ECC semifinal match Nov. 6, 2-1.
“I hope they want to focus on the state tournament,” said Woodstock Academy coach Dennis Snelling. “That’s up to the team at this point. Do they want to keep playing when it’s 30 degrees? They can go as far as they want. If we play like we did (versus Plainfield) in the first 60 or 70 minutes, with that kind of intensity and heart, we can beat some of these teams in the States.”
The semifinal game had a couple of starts to it.
Nov. 5, both the Centaurs and Panthers were getting ready to play in the pouring rain which created a water-logged playing surfaces.
The conditions were deemed to be unplayable and the decision was made to move the match Nov. 6.
The Panthers (13-1-3) had more shots than the Centaurs early, taking the first six.
But none were particularly dangerous.
“It was not wonderful,” Plainfield coach Jon Zielinski said of the reschedule. “It’s really hard to build that emotional game two days in a row like that especially when you don’t actually have a game on the first day. We were a little flat to start. (Woodstock Academy) came ready to play. They were hungry, they outplayed us.”
Plainfield outshot the Centaurs, 7-2, in the first half.
But it was Woodstock Academy that got on the board first.
Kayla Gaudreau delivered a cross to junior Peyton Saracina who sidestepped a Plainfield defender and then rolled the ball past Plainfield keeper Madi Pearson who came out to challenge.
The ball just found its way into Plainfield’s net just before defender Izzy Newbury arrived to give the Centaurs the 1-0 lead.
It was the 14th goal of the season for Saracina.
The Centaurs’ goal, however, served to wake up the Panthers who were clearly seeking some motivation.
That motivation was seeing their ECC championship hopes fizzle.
For the Panther seniors, who have played in the last three ECC championship matches but have yet to win a title, it was more than motivation enough.
The Centaurs goal also seemed to work against them.
“The momentum switched a little after we scored. We just kind of relaxed more than we should have, particularly on our attack, because that’s where we had them,” Snelling said.
Snelling also knew Plainfield would not back off.
The combination of the two spelled trouble.
“We just got caught up in the moment a little and spent too much time watching the ball and not the marks,” the Woodstock Academy coach said.
The momentum clearly switched to Plainfield with 11:39 to play.
The Centaurs were called for handling the ball in the area.
It resulted in a penalty kick for the Panthers.
Sophomore Lindsey Price was able to convert on the shot to tie the game for Plainfield.
“It was an unlucky handball, but stuff like that happens,” Snelling said. “We can’t call time outs and can’t tell them what’s going on. You just have to try and sub and adjust and it wasn’t working.”
Plainfield continued on the attack and got the game-winner with 5:59 left.
A cross from Kate Carleson was tipped by Woodstock Academy keeper Rachel Holden but she could not hold on to it. The ball ricocheted to Newbury who got her head on it and put it in for the game-winning goal.
“It’s always hard to be happy after a loss, but there were positive ways to look at it. We accomplished as much or more than we thought we would. I told the girls to be proud of each other and proud of themselves and we’ll move on to the States. I think we have a pretty good draw,” Snelling said.
Before the Centaurs moved on to state play, several members of the team received awards at the Eastern Connecticut Conference championship matches last Thursday in Waterford.
Linda St. Laurent and Lucy McDermott were named First team ECC All-Stars while Brynn Kusnarowis was honorable mention. Sydney Couture received the Sportsmanship Award and Adeline Smith was honored as the team’s Scholar-Athlete.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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