The Danvers Varsity Girls Soccer Team hosted Marblehead Wednesday night for an N.E.C. Dunn Division clash.  It was Danvers Youth Soccer night and the 3rd grade girls were in their blue and white game jerseys.  The youngsters were each matched up with a varsity player before the game and got to be part of the team introductions.  At halftime, the future Falcons battled it out on the turf in small sided games in front of the big crowd.  The future of Danvers Soccer is certainly bright!

 

The Varsity girls came out playing extremely hard as did the visiting Magicians.  Play went back and forth for the first 15 minutes or so, but it was the visitors that got on the board first in the 16th minute of play.  Marblehead served a perfect corner and had a player head the ball perfectly to the upper corner of the Falcon goal.  The Home team picked up their game for the next 6 minutes and started to dominate play.  In the 22nd minute of the game, Georgia Prouty freed herself for a beautifully hit shot on goal that the goalkeeper got her hands on but couldn't hold on to.  Senior captain Ellie Anderson was there to calmly knock in the rebound to even the score.  Only 5 minutes later the two combined again for a goal.  Anderson sent a perfect through ball that found Prouty who perfectly place her shot for the 2-1 lead.  

 

Marblehead continued to attack though and the Danvers defense was tested often.  The back line of Mikayla Shaffaval, Reese Holland, Ryley Crosby and Skylar Laws played aggressive and physical and did a superb job keeping the score even at 2.

"Our backs played extremely well.  Reese Holland was fabulous.  She had turned her ankle the day before in practice and nobody would have ever known the way she was playing.  She won every 50 / 50 ball in her area and she continuously won balls in the air, heading them out of harms way.  She was a force tonight."

 

Mids, Molly Godfried and Olivia St. Pierre played very well and Lily Delafano did a great job coming off the bench for the back line.   

 

"I liked that we were able to come back from that early deficit.  I felt we were getting some good opportunities but I also felt we let a few good chances get away."

 

The second half was back and forth as well.  Danvers senior keeper, Emily Goddard made 5 saves in the half and the defense continued to play well.  Freshman Addi McCarty made several great runs at forward and created some opportunities for her teammates.  Both freshman Olivia St. Pierre and sophomore Georgia Prouty had some outstanding shots on net from distance but missed by inches.  Prouty had a fantastic blast from about 25 yards out that hit off the post and went wide.  

 

Then, in the 18th minute, the Falcons were called for a hand ball just outside their own goal box.  Marblehead sent a low drive into the box that fell onto the foot of an attacker, who hammered it home to tie the game at 2.

 

"That was extremely tough because we had been doing a nice job defensively and had just had several shots that were inches from being goals.  It was frustrating that the game was tied when I thought we could have been up by a goal or two.  Give Marblehead credit, they never stopped fighting."

 

Danvers had it's best chance down the stretch off a free kick of their own, but St. Pierre's shot went just over the crossbar.  The game would end in a hard fought, 2-2 tie.  

 

"I know this game feels like a loss to my players.  They played hard and we certainly had our opportunities to win this game.  Our effort was great but we're still looking to find our identity as a team.  We're not the club that we were the last couple of seasons.  A lot of players have graduated and we have a lot of new faces.  But the talent is there and I feel we'll continue to get a little better with each game.  I don't think anything will come easy, but that's what makes winning so rewarding.  We have an extremely hard game coming up next Monday against Beverly, who beat this Marblehead team already, 3-1.  That needs to be our focus the next couple of days at practice."