The Danvers Varsity Girls Soccer Team continued their Div. 3 tournament run Friday night.  With the #7 seed, the Falcons hosted #10 seed Newburyport who also had a 13-3-3 record identical to Danvers.  For the past 2 years, Danvers had been eliminated in round 2 and was hoping things would change getting to play on their Home turf.

 

"A big part of our pre-game speech was based on this probably being our last Home game of the season.  If this was to be the last time we played here, we wanted it to be special and we wanted to honor our field which has been so good to us.  With a couple of 2nd round exits the past 2 years, the girls really wanted this one."

 

With a large and loud crowd, the game got underway to an extremely fast start.  Less than 2 minutes in, junior Lila Doucette passed ball through 2 defenders that found the feet of senior captain, Georgia Prouty.  Prouty did a quick move to beat her initial defender and then headed up the left side of the field.  From over 30 yards out, she hit a wicked bomb that sailed over the Newburyport goalkeeper's head and into the back of the net for the quick score.  Less than 2 minutes later, freshman defender Cassidy Randall Passed to Prouty.  Prouty found freshman midfielder Kaia Glover who then passed right back to her just inside the 18 yard box.  Georgia Prouty hit a screamer that hit the inside of the crossbar and came straight down over the goal line for the second goal of the game.

 

"We couldn't have asked for a better start.  Both of those goals were hit so well by Georgia.  She seemed extremely focused during our warm up and I felt she was going to have a big game for us.  They only thing that kept us a bit nervous was there was still another 76 minutes left to play in the game!"

 

In the 17th minute the Falcons made it 3-0.  Junior Addi McCarty played a booming direct kick into the Newburyport box.  After it was semi cleared, junior Ashley Freitas played a square pass to Prouty.  The talented senior shot a low hard shot from about 20 yards out that beat the keeper to her left for her 5th hat trick of the season.With a 3 goal lead and still over 75% of the game still to be played, the hosts needed to withstand some rushes by the visitors.  Freshman Ali Doucette made some key tackles along the Danvers back line and freshman defender Maddie Hanas also made some big stops.  Junior winger DeAnna Figueiredo was a physical force fighting back every time her opponent got overly physical with her.  Lila Doucette and Freitas were first to every ball in the midfield and kept the momentum with the Falcons.  Senior goalkeeper, Maddie Dembowski handled all 4 shots she saw cleanly in net.  After 40 minutes, the score was 3-0.

 

"Most Teams would break after 3  quick goals like that but give Newburyport tons of credit, they never stopped fighting.  We new we'd need to keep up this level of play for 40 more minutes.  The pace of the game was extremely fast.  Our players were sprinting for every ball on the field but I knew at some point we'd have to withstand some pressure."

 

Newburyport adjusted their lineup and moved their top player, Alexis Greenblott to striker.  The move worked right away, putting Danvers on it's heels early.  Less than 3 minutes into the second half.  Danvers was awarded a corner kick.  When the serve was cleared by Newburyport, a through ball was played through the Falcon defense onto a sprinting forward's foot.  She took the ball and broke in on the Danvers goal alone, finishing for the goal making the score 3-1.  Only 7 minutes later, a Clipper forward broke in on the Danvers goal again and hit a bullet aimed for the net.  Dembowski got both hands on it and saved it straight up into the air, than caught it as it came down to thwart the bid.  Juniors Sabina Sturgeon and Claudia Drakos came on and played up top the Falcons.  They both played with relentless speed, putting pressure all over the Newburyport defense.  Gianna Sutherland added some nice touches and creativity on the left wing for Danvers and both Cassidy Randall and junior, Lila Flynn found themselves marking Greenblott at times throughout the second half.  Addi McCarty was steady at central defense and cleared the ball when under pressure.

 

As the minutes ticked away, the hosts started to play a little more defensive.  Prouty helped out by getting back time and time again and Dembowski continued to shine in goal making 7 more saves.  When the final whistle blew, Danvers had a hard fought 3-1 victory to advance to the elite 8 of the tournament.

 

The girls played so hard tonight.  Everyone really stepped up and played fantastic.  The girls on the sideline were so loud and so invested.  This was really a Team effort and I couldn't be more proud of the way they gutted this out.  Players like DeAnna, Claudia, Lila Doucette and Sabina really stood up to the physicality of Newburyport.  Ashley Freitas was a defensive wall for us in front of our back line and Addi played calm under pressure.  But you gotta admire the fire that Georgia came out with.  When she's looking to shoot from anywhere on the field, she becomes so dangerous.  If you pressure her to prevent her from shooting, she'll blow by you on the dribble.  She's such a weapon for us."

 

With the win, Danvers improves to 14-3-3 and now awaits the winner or Saturday's game between Hanover and Medfield.