Stellar season ends at States
Junior Meghan Stassie prepares to take a shot at the goal in the post-season game against Sheppard Hill.
December 2, 2015
The girls’ varsity soccer team was on the verge of capturing another state title but lost 3-1 in the championship game to the undefeated Needham team on November 21.
“It would have been nice to end the season with a win, but winning Central Mass and making a far run in the tournament was something we were all proud of this year,” senior co-captain Caroline Leonard said.
Right from the start, the state finals looked to be a tight match. Needham started off the scoring fifteen minutes into the game and ended the first half up 2-0. With just over fifteen minutes left in the game and the score 3-0, Leonard found the back of the net and tried to surge the team.
“Caroline’s goal was an exciting moment for all of us and it definitely helped lift our energy even though we were down,” senior Annemarie Moy said.
“Playing in the state final game was like nothing I had ever experienced. The atmosphere in the stadium was full of energy and all of the fans supporting us made it unforgettable,” Leonard said.
Led by one of the highest scoring offenses in Massachusetts and a solid defense to go along with it, the team took losses in the past two Central Mass. finals and used them as fuel for this year’s success.
“Losing the past two years, we have learned not to take anything for granted and work really hard to just take it game by game,” senior co-captain Kendall Sweeney said.
Finally, the third time was the charm, as the team defeated Wachusett 3-2 on their home turf in the final, the teams first time winning the title since 2009.
The team then rolled through the tournament with wins over Shepherd Hill and Tantasqua leading to the championship game.
Hostage and Sweeney contributed significantly to the high scoring offense, but it was sophomore Sydney Carney who led the team in scoring this year with twenty-five points, scoring over twice the amount of goals as she did last season.
“It’s really exciting [to be the leading scorer] because at the beginning of the season no one expected it,” Carney said.
The team averaged 4.4 goals per game and only gave up .8 goals per game for the regular season. Head coach Scott Taggart accredits the success of his team to its depth. He is confident that he can put eighteen or nineteen players out on the field and not have the level of play drop at all.
“Nothing has really surprised me about the success of this year because I knew that with the quality of the players we had we could create a great opportunity. We are playing at a level that I thought we should,” Taggart said.
“We have a very deep bench. We can put anyone out there and compete,” Sweeney said.
Their only loss was on October 27th to rival Nashoba who had defeated them in the Central Mass final in 2014.
The team was mostly made up of returning players who looked to avenge the losses on a greater stage by the end of the season.
“No matter who you lose to it sucks and losing in the CMass final two years in a row hurts because you know you were so close,” Hostage said.
The past two years the team failed to achieve a berth into the state semi-finals. When they defeated Wachusett they punched their ticket to the There they met Minnechaug and Mackenzie Smith put home the winning goal in the second half as the team won 2-1.
“This year we knew we had a lot of talent, but I didn’t know if we’d be able to click like we did,” Hostage said.
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