Lenox, Lee Girls Battle to a Draw
LENOX, Mass. -- The Lenox girls soccer team refused to accept defeat Monday evening under the lights on their home turf.
The Millionaires battled back from two two-goal deficits to earn a 4-4 tie against the Lee Wildcats.
The two teams started the game with four goals within two minutes it started with Lee in the seventh minute of the game after Shannon Finnegan finished a deflected clear out of the 18 to make it 1-0.
Finnegan's goal was quickly followed by teammate Maddie Graziano's goal after breaking through the Lenox defense and going one-on-one with Lenox goalie Shannon Meisberger; Finnegan assisted the pass putting them up 2-0.
"When we came into this game we knew it was going to be a game of offense," Lee coach Lauren Finnegan said. "We knew there were going to be a lot of shots. It was actually exactly like I expected."
In the eighth minute, Lenox's Alessandra Arace responded to the Wildcats 2-0 lead and added one to the far low corner cutting the lead in half.
Two minutes later, Shelby Lynch tied it at two off a deflected shot for Lenox.
Both teams moved the ball up the field, creating offense and getting shots off. Lee pressured the net more in the end of the first half and found holes in Lenox's offense. It finally broke the tie in the 35th minute after Meisberger came out the net to challenge Graziano.
Graziano was able to beat her, putting the Wildcats ahead at halftime, 3-2.
"Defensively, we have a couple of girls in new positions; some of it is just trying to get them to understand the system, we're working that flat four back," Lenox coach Kyle Zinchuk said. "Shifting up as just one unit; we got burned on at least once that I can remember, our center backs moved up and our outside backs didn't and we had too much space in behind."
Twelve minutes into the second half, Graziano added her third of the game; it came off of her own deflected shot that was stopped by Meisberger. She got the rebound and fired again to make it 4-2.
From there; the tides changed and Lenox put the pressure on.
Tova Brown found herself open inside the 18 and hit the back of the net, cutting Lee's lead to one again.
Lee goalie Brianna Hawley stepped up and made some huge saves; one off a shot for Arace that hit the crossbar; Hawley punched the rebound over the top of the net holding the score at 4-3.
"She's phenomenal, she's a sophomore, but plays like a senior," Finnegan said. "The last 10 minutes, I told my team I used my timeout way too early in the second half, because I knew what we needed to do to reorganize, but I couldn't do that and she did it for us, she helped us, they were really coming at us the last five minutes; they wanted it."
With about five minutes left, Abby Schilling put in the equalizer.
The shot came from 10 yards outside the 18, and she sent it as far right to the corner that it could go and hit the back of the net putting the score at four all; where it remained through the final whistle.
"It was really encouraging to see them on two separate occasions work back from the 2-0 deficit," Zinchuk said. "In the last 20 minutes we did a much better job of playing a higher pressure defense, we were able to win those 50/50 balls coming out the back and then go right back in."
Lee (4-2-2) hosts Mount Everett Wednesday at 4 p.m. Lenox (3-2-1) travels to Taconic for a 4 p.m. start.