Drury Girls Rout Sci Tech
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The Drury girls soccer team Tuesday not only equaled its win total for all of 2017, it equaled its goal total for all of 2017.
The Blue Devils got four goals from Jacqueline Moulton en route to an 11-0 win over Springfield Science and Technology.
Coupled with a 7-0 win over Mohawk Trail in last week’s road opener, Tuesday’s win gives Drury a 2-0 record heading into Wednesday’s showdown against 2017 sectional finalist Lenox.
The 11 goals against Sci Tech also equal the total number of goals Drury scored in 18 games.
Granted, Sci Tech was one of Drury’s two wins a year ago, but Mohawk was 7-8-2 a year ago and is 1-1-1 on this young season.
So, you cannot say the Blue Devils’ success is entirely a product of its schedule, and you would not say it if you saw the way coach Maria Bartini’s team controlled the ball Tuesday at John J. DelNegro Field.
“We’ve been really communicating well,” Bartini said. “We’re moving the ball nicely. We’re doing a better job of using the space on the field.
“But the thing that I love about this team is how open they are to constructive criticism. The really want to learn. They want to get better. They want to improve. We talk about something in practice, and they implement it right away, which is really fun to coach.”
All the Blue Devils were having fun by the end of Tuesday’s game, which started with a goal by Moulton off a Tess Zoito corner kick in the sixth minute.
Before 12 more minutes had elapsed, Moulton had completed the natural hat trick, and the rout was on.
Elli Miles added a penalty kick goal after a handball in the box, and Hayley Shook got the ball at the top of the 18 and took it in to make it 5-0 with nearly 15 minutes left in the first half.
Drury compiled a 39-1 advantage in shots on goal and earned a 14-0 spread in corner kick opportunities. Sci Tech goalie Emilie Goodrow made 28 saves, including some real testers.
Hannah Singer made the only save needed to preserve the Blue Devils’ second shutout of the year, stopping a second half shot to combine for the goose egg with starting goalie Mackenzie Dobbert.
Dobbert moved into the field in the second half and got in on the scoring with Drury’s 11th and final goal -- after Moulton, Shook, Miles (two goals, three assists), Julia Albright and Madeline Nesbitt put the ball in the back of the net.
Bartini said the big working margin earned in the first half allowed her to ask the team to work on some skills she knows they will need Wednesday against a potent Lenox squad.
“I was able to rest a lot of our starters and give a lot of girls time out there,” she said. “We were able to work on things that we need to to make sure we bring it out tomorrow against Lenox.”
But the bigger benefit of Tuesday’s win may have been psychological.
“This was a good for the girls to build some confidence,” Bartini said. “We were on the receiving end of some games like this just last year. They remember. And hopefully they recognize that it’s a 180, and I want them to feel really confident and proud of that.”