WW-P South girls’ soccer makes states

Three-game win streak helps Pirates reach .500 mark

By: Bob Nuse
   
   It was a position the West Windsor-Plainsboro South girls’ soccer team hasn’t been in for a long time.
   But at the same time, these were players who hadn’t played a huge role in past success of the Pirates.
   WW-P South entered last week with three games to play prior to the state tournament cutoff date, needing at least two wins and a tie just to qualify for the state tournament. For a team that had won Central Jersey Group IV titles three of the last six years, including last year, that’s a modest goal.
   But this is a different WW-P South team. This team returned very few starters, sports a lot of new faces, but apparently has the same big heart. The Pirates completed a 3-0 week with a 1-0 win over Notre Dame on Friday. With the win, they improved to 8-7-1 overall and earned a spot in the CJ IV tournament.
   "We’ve had a lot of ups and downs," said senior Jenna Fucetola, one of a handful of returning players with varsity experience. "We have a lot of young players and not a lot of stars. Last year we had Laine (Jelenic) and Sara (Williams) and Linda (O’Leary). They and the other seniors took on all the pressure. We had a lot of seniors that we relied on. This year it’s been a lot of new people."
   And over the last week those new faces have been coming through. In Friday’s win over Notre Dame, Sasha Persad scored the only goal of the game. Earlier in the week, Jen Urs and Fucetola scored in a 2-0 win over Hamilton, while Persad scored in a 1-0 win over Lawrence last Monday. Through it all there was a defense led by goalkeeper Lindsay Williams that posted three straight shutouts.
   "This week has been an awesome experience," Fucetola said. "We knew we had to get at least two wins and a tie and we got three wins, which is great. It’s what we wanted to do. I think in a lot of ways this year has been more rewarding than past years because we weren’t expected to do much.
   "The last couple years we were always expected to win. This year nobody knew what to expect from us. We struggled for a while and lost some games we never expected to lose. This past week we needed to win and we did it. It’s like a rebirth."
   The low point for the Pirates may have been a 2-0 loss to Trenton on Oct. 1 that saw their record fall to 3-4-1 after a 3-0 start. They then lost three of their next five and found themselves with a 5-7-1 record and three games remaining before the cutoff for needing a .500 record.
   "After we lost that game to Trenton I had my doubts," WW-P South coach Chris Miller said. "We lost to some teams I didn’t think we would lose to and that put some pressure on me. But these girls have kept working hard and we’ve had different people come through for us at different times.
   "This year has been so much different. Being the underdog and trying to win these games is different than it has been in the past."
   But as they have done in the past, the Pirates came through when it counted. So while the players are different, the clutch performances stay the same. And in a week where they allowed no goals, Williams was as clutch as anyone.
"This is three shutouts in a row for Lindsay Williams," Miller said. "She’s come up big when we needed her the most. I can’t say enough about the way she has played."
   Or, for that matter, her whole team during a big week.