Boys' and girls' varsity soccer teams need to find a happy medium

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Nantucket High School freshman Sabrina Dawson (right) stole the ball on her way to scoring in the second half. Playing three games in as many days proved to be too much for the varsity girls' soccer team last week, with two games held off island.

Thursday, Nantucket traveled to Division 1 Abington, only to be sent packing with a 6-0 loss.

Nantucket held Abington scoreless going into the break knotted at 0- 0 and then allowed six goals, after having expended their energy in the first half.

On Friday, Nantucket hosted Lighthouse League perennial foe Provincetown. Nantucket had shut out Provincetown 5-0 just over a week ago in the first meeting.

In a relentless stiff wind - the great equalizer - both teams had trouble keeping the ball on the pitch with many passes and shots being pushed out-of-bounds by the wind or sent sailing over the crossbar away from the net.

After dominating in the first half, Nantucket went into halftime up 3-1 on the strength of two goals produced by Jessica Guevara and lone freshman Sabrina Dawson's one goal. Provincetown managed to score off a corner with a header over senior keeper Sarah Poor's head to stay in the game.

Provincetown came out of the break taking the action to Nantucket's end for several minutes and closed the gap to 3-2. Poor committed going low and the ball, caught in a gust of wind, sailed high into the net. A few minutes later, Dawson got away from her coverage and slammed a shot into the near post, only to see it crawl up the post, turn right and hug the cross bar from post to post, and then slide down the far post only to drop a few inches outside the goal line. Play stopped cold with everyone looking at each other unsure as to whether or not a goal had been scored. In what seemed like hours, the referee finally raised his arms for the insurance goal and the 4-2 lead.

Provincetown managed to score one more time in a similar manner as their previous goal, wind-aided, to pull within one. Nantucket then fired off two more to put it out of reach, the last coming with only 30 seconds left in the match. Guevara and Dawson each earned hat-tricks on the day. Poor was steady in goal when the wind was not playing havoc with the ball's trajectory.

Nantucket again traveled off island on Saturday to Coyle-Cassidy. Coyle-

Cassidy proved to be a brick wall and handed Nantucket its fifth loss of the season 8-0.

Coach Jorge Rojas felt that the girls were tired.

"We had three games in three days, two off island and to top that off, Sarah Poor was injured from one of the two other games, but she did her best in that first half," said Rojas. "Shantel Hanniford had to take over keeper duties in the second half. We could only handle so much."

While the girls were busy, the varsity boys did not play a match for a week and a half and this hiatus did not help their performance on the field.

After not playing for 10 days due to scheduling and a rain out postponement, the Nantucket varsity boys' soccer team played at Coyle-Cassidy Saturday "showing signs of rust," according to the boys' soccer coach Rich Brannigan.

Nantucket lost 5-2 bringing their record to 4-2-1.

Emil Bender, assisted by Brian Tarcitano and Philipe Bazilio, scored for Nantucket.

Brannigan had high praise for first year varsity keeper sophomore Alex Perkins.

"Alex is really doing well and was awesome on Saturday, showing great skills on the field under pressure," said Brannigan.

The team's next home game is on Monday, October 13 at 1:00 p.m. against Cohasset. I