Eagles notch first
playoff win
WHS girls’ soccer team
takes on Cheverus in quarterfinals
By
Nicholas Gordon
Windham Independent
The
Windham Eagles Girls’ Soccer program, led by
senior captain, Jessica Taylor (one goal and one
assist) took their first step in the Class A
playoffs Wednesday evening, beating the Sanford
Redskins by a score of 2-0 just 72 hours after
winning their regular season finale against the
same Redskins and by an identical tally.
Eagles’ coach Wally LeBlanc, wary of
overconfidence, made sure his team understood
that Wednesday was a new day.
“What
I was most nervous about today was that we just
beat them three days ago,” said LeBlanc. “I was
worried that our girls would expect it to be
like that and that’s one of the things that we
talked about, ‘go out and establish yourselves
early’ and that really nice goal early in the
first half helped us tremendously, got the
jitters off and allowed us to control the tempo
for a good portion of the game.”
The
goal, scored by Audrey Quigley and assisted by
Taylor, came on Windham’s first shot, which beat
Sanford keeper Christina Steltzer high over the
right shoulder in the 4th minute of
play.
Sanford head coach Kendra Brown knew her team
would have their hands full from the outset.
“Windham is a good team,” said Brown. “We knew
they were going to be a tough team, they’ve got
some really quick forwards. Jess Taylor is a
great player, well respected player in the
league, I knew that and we had someone
individually marking her.”
In the
second half, the Eagles swooped in for another
quick score. Taylor dribbled down the right
side, cut towards the net, faked out two
defenders and deposited the ball in the wide
open left side of the net for the insurance
marker and her second point of the night.
“She
actually was sick and in the first half she was
complaining of headaches and an upset stomach,”
Leblanc told reporters. “We were nervous for
her with that and didn’t know what to do, didn’t
know if we needed to give her a rest and a
credit to her, (she) dug down in, found the
mental toughness and kind of worked her way out
of that and picked up the game in the second
half … attacking that defender with confidence
was fantastic. In the second half, she just
kind of, somehow got herself out of thinking
about the illness. She let the game take over.
She was able to get into the game and I’m very
proud of her”
The
Eagles will now face fourth-seeded Cheverus in
the Western Maine Class A Quarterfinals on
Saturday.
“Tremendous challenge,” LeBlanc said of the
Stags. “I think the two teams have battled a
lot last year and this year, we lost to them two
years ago here on this field, we edged them this
year down on their field in overtime. They’re a
quality team and we’re going to have to play
even a little better then we have here tonight,
but we live for those challenges. I think this
is the kind of team that enjoys being under that
pressure and I’m looking forward to that game.”
The
game will be hosted by the higher seed, Cheverus,
at 11:00 a.m. in Portland on Saturday. |
