U12 girls take soccer championship
BY LINDAWILLIAMS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Long after the echoes of "wolfy, wolfy, whahoooooo" had finished resonating across the pitch, Nantucket Student Soccer Association's U12 girls coaches Shelly Brannigan and Lousia Crosby sat contentedly on the team bench talking quietly about their team's outstanding season that culminated in last Saturday's triumph over Dighton- Rehoboth for the championship.

Nantucket's undefeated soccer team takes time for a team photo.

Crosby and Brannigan agreed that even without the postseason play "it had been a real dream season" and "the girls had continued on the roll they had gotten on at the end of the last season to end this year with a perfect record." They seemed dazed by the win but felt that the girls deserved it. "They came out firing and passing unbelievably and executed all the stuff we had been working on all week," according to Brannigan. The girls picked up the rally wolf cry from Brannigan, who uses the hand sign for wolf to indicate "ears up and listening, mouths closed" in order to minimize the chit chat at practices. Both coaches felt that it worked and it showed.

MICHAEL GALVIN/The Independent Nantucket's Isabella Day, right, eludes a tackle.

It has been a Cinderella season for the 17-player squad. After failing to reach the playoffs last year due to a questionable league decision that left Nantucket the team out in the cold after having tied for fourth place with two other teams, Nantucket blazed to glory this year with a perfect regular season record of 8-0-0, and leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that they deserved to be in the playoffs.

Having earned home field advantage throughout the playoffs, Nantucket proceeded to trounce Taunton in the first game and then fought through 60 minutes of regulation and two ten-minute overtime periods to squeak by Westport, 3-2, to get to the championship round, the first ever played on Nantucket by an NSSA team in the almost 20 years the league has been in existence. Their opponent, Dighton-Rehoboth, had finished right behind Nantucket in the standings with their only blemish being a tie with Westport. Nantucket's girls were heard saying before the match that they were not as nervous as they "had played their championship game last weekend against Westport." There were no nerves to be seen on the field this day.

The teams met in front of over 100 fans at 11 a.m. on Saturday with the outcome seemingly in doubt, given the parity between the two teams. Sixty minutes later, when the final whistle blew, Nantucket came out with the 3-1 victory and a record of 11-0-0. "It was a real team effort," Crosby said. "The girls started with their usual pre-game mantra of, 'Put the bread in the oven,' and finished with the bread having risen to perfection."

The girls came out firing, taking the action into the D-R end for all but a few minutes of the first half, with keeper Kate Freed relatively unchallenged but there when the team needed her to be. Alexa Crosby charged down from midfield to score for Nantucket at the seven minute mark off a nice feed from Taylor Kopp. DR did not make it into Nantucket's end of the field until ten minutes into the first half. D-R had no answer for Sabrina Dawson as she sent shot after shot into the goal area and it was just a matter of time until she found the back of the net and put Nantucket up comfortably with a 2-0 lead at the half on a cross from near to far post that just caught the net area to bounce in.

With two complete eight-player lines available to keep fresh legs on the field at all times to D-R's three subs, Crosby felt that the opponent was somewhat "intimidated" right from the beginning of the game when D-R saw that Nantucket's next line was up and running the sidelines and ready to come on the field without losing a beat. There was very little they could do to take advantage of Nantucket. At the break, Paul Jensen, fan and parent of player Grace Jensen, observed that the girls were "playing with a lot of confidence and more calm than the game against Westport."

D-R did get going after the break and started to make forays into Nantucket's end of the field, requiring Freed to make several saves to preserve the lead. Kali Sherburne along with Hannah Pykosz got in the way of a few shots that were in the process of being fired off by a D-R forward at point blank range. They managed to keep the ball in Nantucket's end of the field for several minutes with Nantucket falling back to protect the net. Olivia Rand and Kylie Maguire were able to clear the ball to the waiting forwards for quality runs on the net, but most of the action was centered at midfield for most of the second half. Cara Garufiwas instrumental in preventing the Westport attackers from turning towards the net by driving them down deep into the corners under the increased offensive pressure. Dawson finally put Nantucket out of reach 18 minutes in, when she sent a long floating ball from about the 30 over the defense that curved in for the 3-0 lead just under the crossbar.

D-R managed to get on the board due to a mad scramble, several saves and attempts to get the ball both in the net and out of the net. That only made Nantucket more determined to prevent any more attacks and finished off the game keeping the action in the D-R end of the field in what Crosby characterized as a "passing clinic" between Jacq Raynor, Garufi, Crosby and Sumner LeBaron-Brien. All of the players deserved mention in the effort: Isabella Day, Marissa Jones, Samantha Freed, Mya Kotalac, and Kyra White.

Crosby and Brannigan both felt that the very special email they had received and shared with the girls prior to the game was instrumental in giving them the confidence that they needed to finish off the season on a high note. Two time Women's World Cup and Olympic Gold winner and 20 year veteran US National Team member Kristine Lilly, who will be running a clinic this week and speaking at the NSSA spring awards program at Children's Beach at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 28, sent the girls an inspirational memo at the request of Brannigan. In it she offered words of encouragement. "I want to wish you good luck and to have fun… Make sure to work hard, encourage each other, and kick some butt. Good luck and have fun." She always ends her notes with one phrase that will probably become the team's new cheer, "Always believe." It appears that the team believed. Brannigan added that "this was our World Cup and a great way to end the season."