Mackenzie Lewis
Sports Editor
After two overtimes and a 0-0 tie, the girls soccer team came to the realization that they had the opportunity to beat the top-seeded team, St. Joseph’s high school. Last Saturday, October 25th, the team took on the 1st place team in the FCIAC quarter-finals.
At the start of the game, the team was motivated, but didn’t have the highest of hopes. Junior goalie Katie Donovan said, “In all honestly, going into the game I wasn’t too optimistic about beating St. Joe’s because we barely qualified for FCIACs, and they beat us 3-0 earlier on the season.”
For a full eighty minutes, the game remained scoreless, which lead it into penalty kicks. Senior captain Courtney Overaker said, “It was very exciting and nerve racking. We worked so hard to keep the game tied at 0-0 and we didn’t want to put all of our hard work down the drain through penalty kicks.”
Senior co-captains Kyla Persky and Marina Braccio, junior Mia Carroll, sophomore Abby Crowley and freshman Braeden Dial took the penalty kicks for the Rams. The team scored 4 out of the 5 goals, beating St. Joes who scored 2 out of their 4. This victory sent the girls to the semi-finals. “Penalty kicks can go either way and they went in our favor that day,” Courtney said.
A lot of the pressure was on the goalie that night. “I tried not to psych myself out because from my past experiences with penalty shootouts,” Katie said. “I realized that it is better to avoid thinking about the PKs and getting yourself nervous before they start. Instead, I just really focus myself the second I step on the goal line for the PK.”
With the semi-finals game ahead of them, the Rams faced Staples on Tuesday, October 28th. Although their last game was a tremendous win, the team fell short to Staples, losing 4-0.
“I think a lot of people were caught up in the win against St. Joes that they weren’t focused in the Staples game,” Courtney said. “It’s so hard to watch a team work so hard to beat the number one team seed and then fall far behind and lose to a mediocre team.”
Although there were ups and downs to the team’s FCIAC run, they are looking to take the last game as a lesson to learn going into states. “We are willing to work as hard as we can to get as far as we can,” Courtney said. “All we can do now is move on.”
The Rams will face off against against Daniel Hand in the first round of the state championship tournament on Tuesday, November 4th at 4p.m. at Daniel Hand High School.
