The Danvers Varsity Girls Soccer Team headed to windy Andover Friday afternoon for their annual non-league match with the Warriors.  The 2 Teams had tied a year ago on the Falcon's Home turf.  With a strong wind blowing directly at their own goal, Danvers certainly would have difficulties in the first half against the unbeaten hosts.  To make matters worse, a defensive miscue resulted in an early Andover goal only 2 minutes into the match.

 

"That's not how you want to start a game on the road for sure.  A ball was played into our 18 and we had 3 players all in that vicinity.  However, poor communication lead to each of them hesitating and Andover was there to pounce on the mistake."

 

Danvers struggled to get into any kind of rythm throughout the half.  The passing was off, the ball was constantly out of bounds and Andover just seemed sharper with the wind at their backs.  In the 13th minute, Andover doubled it's lead on a corner kick.  Andover headed the ball into the Falcon net for what would eventually be the game winner.

 

"Giving up corner kicks is tough and we did not defend that well at all.  We weren't being assertive and Andover made us pay again."

 

Danvers goalkeeper Maddie Dembowski made 3 big saves throughout the half to keep Andover from opening the game up.  Danvers did get some chances of their own with the best coming late in the half on an indirect kick just outside the box.  However the Danvers shot sailed wide, keeping the score 2-0 at halftime.

 

"I think everyone was pretty upset at our level of play the first half.  We made too many defensive and offensive mistakes and it cost us a couple of goals and prevented us from scoring our own."

 

Danvers came out of the gates a completely different Team in the second half.  They carried the play and limited Andover to only 2 shots the entire half.  Senior defender Reese Holland did a nice job closing passing lanes and was strong in the air.  Senior Skylar Laws was first to the ball time and time again and limited any kind of attacking cohesion for Andover.  Junior Brooke Wynott connected nicely on passes to her teammates and sparked the offense with her creativity.  Senior Molly Godfried combined nicely with sophomore teammate Liv St. Pierre with short passing and 2 touch play.  

 

"We were a completely different Team the second half, but we still had nothing to show for it.  I give Andover a lot of credit because they did a terrific job marking our scoring leader, Georgia Prouty all over the field.  They made it very difficult for her to get open."

 

With 3 minutes remaining in the game, Danvers was awarded a corner kick.  Sophomore Lila Doucette played the ball to Prouty who took several dribbles before firing a shot into the right side of the net making the game 2-1.  Danvers had all the momentum at this point and nearly scored on another corner kick after designing a set piece during a time out.  However, it was not meant to be as time ran out and Danvers suffered their second loss of the season.  

 

"I'm so proud of how the girls turned the game around in the second half.  Unfortunately the hole we dug in the first half was to deep to climb out of today."

"Liv St. Pierre was amazing tonight.  She carried us for much of the game and she was the best player on the field today for the entire 80 minutes."

"I think we'll learn a lot about ourselves from this game and going forward it should make us a better Team."

 

The Danvers record stands at 3-2 on the season with 3 more games scheduled for next week.