Mount Greylock Girls Hold Off Lenox
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Fewer than 48 hours after earning the program’s biggest regular season win in years, the Mount Greylock girls soccer team took care of business again on John T. Allen Field.
Madison Ross scored the game’s only goal, and the Mounties held off a furious Lenox comeback bid in the second half to earn a 1-0 win over the Millionaires and improve to 2-0 this season.
On Thursday, Mount Greylock opened with a come-from-behind win over Pittsfield. Mounties coach Tom Ostheimer was worried the team might suffer a little bit of a letdown after the big victory.
“We talked about that yesterday -- that we need to continue to work hard and come out ready to play,” Ostheimer said. “It’s always hard on a weekend when you have a whole day to think about it where they’re not together, they’re not in class. It’s a little more unstructured, so you never know what you’re going to get out of the players.
“But we had to fight every second of that game. I’m proud of the girls.”
The Mounties took the fight mostly to the visitors in the first half, generating nine shots on goal and finally putting one past Lenox eighth-grader Sophie Patella in the 33rd minute.
A cross from the left wing into the 18 was played by a Lenox defender, who appeared for a moment to be able to clear the ball, but she lost control, and Ross was there to jump on the loose ball and chip it into the net.
Patella ended up making a dozen saves.
“Soph has really stepped up big for us,” Lenox coach Kyle Zinchuk said. “We started the season off knowing that our backup goalie from last year, Taylor Knight, was not going to be available. She tore her ACL. We’ve been looking at a couple of eighth-graders to fill those shoes, and Sophie’s really handled that extremely well and extremely maturely for an eighth-grader.”
Patella steps into some pretty big boots with the graduation of Shannon Meisberger, a standout keeper who is continuing her athletic career at Georgetown University as a hurdler in the Hoyas’ Division I track and field program.
“Last year we were up here at Mount Greylock, and Shannon Meisberger played probably the best game I’ve ever seen her play,” Zinchuk said. “With them being aware of that, I can’t be more proud of the way Sophie and the whole team in general played with a bunch of young girls coming up through and really growing.”
Ostheimer also was impressed with Lenox’s performance, especially in the second half, when the Millionaires generated numerous quality chances and four shots on goal on keeper Isabella Nicastro (six saves).
“They gave us 80 minutes of hard play,” Oshtheimer said. “I was really impressed how well they played together. I thought they won the first touch battle and a lot of the 50-50 balls until late in the game when we made some great tackles and really controlled the ball.
“They had a lot of shots from outside. That seemed to be their game.”
Lenox hosts Drury on Wednesday under the lights. Mount Greylock plays its third straight home game to open the season on Monday when Monument Mountain comes to town.