The Danvers Varsity Girls Soccer Team traveled to Marblehead Wednesday afternoon for their 6th game in 13 days.  All of the games had been extremely close and Danvers was looking to get their first win in 5 matches, after tying 2 and losing 2 during that time span.  Danvers tied Marblehead 2-2 and had to come from behind to do so the first time they played early in the season.  

 

"This has been a crazy stretch of games for us.  Every game has been decided by a goal or less except for our 3-1 loss to Brookline.  We've been through the gauntlet and were hoping we had enough left in the tank to battle Marblehead."

 

Danvers dominated from the opening whistle.  Senior outside mids Courtney Hinchion and Ellie Anderson pressured the Magicians into many mistakes and turnovers early on.  Junior center back Reese Holland established her territory on the field and made sure to win every ball played into that area.  Freshman midfielder Olivia St. Pierre used her technical ability to carve through defenders in the middle of the field and play dangerous passes to freshman forward Lila Doucette and sophomore Georgia Prouty.

 

"We looked strong right from the start.  We possessed the ball very well and made them turn the ball over quite a bit.  There were at least 2 occasions early on that a winger of theirs crossed a dangerous ball into our box.  Both times, Reese Holland cleared it away.  She looked dialed in defensively tonight."

 

Along with Holland, defenders Mikayla Shaffaval, Ryley Crosby, Ellie Anderson and Lily Delafano all played focused and it looked as though Marblehead would have a tough time getting their attack flowing.  However, in the 34th minute, Danvers was called for a foul and Marblehead sophomore, Ava Machado hit a perfect direct kick past the Danvers wall and into the upper 90 of the Falcon goal for the 1-0 lead.  Danvers went into halftime trailing by 1 as they did several weeks ago, at Home vs. Marblehead.

 

"That was a crushing goal.  We were playing so well and had really limited their chances.  Having to play from behind the rest of the way, was going to be an uphill battle.  We needed a win tonight to get back on track.  You could tell the girls had some doubt in their eyes so the pressure was really on."

 

Danvers continued to maintain play in the Marblehead end of the field throughout the second half.  In the 13th minute, the Falcons finally caught their break.  Hinchion forced her defender to play a ball out of bounds.  She then took a quick throw to junior Krysta Zamejtis who 1 timed a pass back to Prouty who also 1 timed a pass to Crosby.  Crosby then played a nice diagonal pass to St. Pierre who took a dribble and laid off a ball to her left to Prouty.  Prouty took the ball towards the end line and sent a rolling pass across the goal mouth to a wide open Ellie Anderson.  Anderson calmly tapped the ball home into the low corner of the net for the huge goal.  

 

"That goal was really executed well.  We had 6 girls combine for 1 and 2 touch passing which led up to that goal.  It certainly came at an opportune time and seemed to take a lot of the pressure off of the girls backs."

 

Danvers took it's offensive game up a couple of notches from that point on, smelling another goal.  About 10 minutes later, Prouty found Anderson again, almost exactly as before when the goal was scored.  This time however, the Marblehead keeper made a diving save to her right to deny Anderson's bid.  On the ensuing corner kick, senior Cali Abbatessa's serve found Anderson's head and went straight off the upper corner of the goal frame.  The ball came straight down on the goal line but no goal was awarded.  Minutes later, Olivia St. Pierre hit a 20 yard blast that rattled the crossbar and once again, came straight down on the goal line.  Once again, no goal was allowed.

 

"We had 3 awesome shots on their goal but nothing to show for us.  Time was running out and we were throwing everything at them."

 

With just over 5 minutes to play, Danvers got what they were looking for.  Ryley Crosby went in for a very physical 50 / 50 tackle and won the ball which was played to senior captain, Tegan Price.  Price 1 timed a pass forward to Liv St. Pierre who then threaded a perfect through ball pass to Georgia Prouty.  Prouty sprinted by her defender and kicked the ball past the frozen keeper for the go ahead goal.  Danvers would continue to defend well for the next 5 minutes to take Home the 2-1 victory.

 

"Nothing has come easy for us this season.  We're playing extremely well and yet, for a good part of this game, we were playing from behind.  Reese was incredible on defense for us tonight and Mikayla played very well back there too.  Olivia and Georgia worked well together in the middle for us and created lots of good chances.  We needed a solid win against a strong opponent and we got that today."

 

Senior goalkeeper and captain, Emily Goddard made 5 saves on the night and played mistake free.  Danvers improves to 7-4-3 with the victory and next plays a non-league match, at North Andover on Saturday, 4:00.

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