Second-half effort better for both
By: Mike Newman
To be the champ you have to beat the champ.
Despite being the top seed in the Mercer County Tournament, the West Windsor-Plainsboro North girls’ soccer team could not defeat defending champion Pennington in its semifinal match Wednesday. The Knights lost, 1-0, to the fifth-seeded Pennington squad and were eliminated from the tourney.
In the other semifinal, Princeton Day School was eliminated with a 2-1 loss to Steinert. Both games were played on the turf field at Mercer County Community College.
"Pennington is a very good team," WWP-N coach Kevin Mackenzie said following his team’s loss. "They are very fast and they commit totally to the attack. I thought we did very well to hold them to one goal. I mean, they have a lot of offensive weapons."
In fact it was the Knights’ defense that kept them alive. After giving up the lone goal early in the match, WWP-N played strong in the backfield to give their team a fighting chance.
"We did very well defending restarts, especially their corner kicks," said Mackenzie, whose team lost for the first time in 13 games. "They created some scoring opportunities but we did a very good job of not letting them put the finishing touches on the game."
The Knights had their chances to even the match. Unfortunately, for the Knights they were unable to create quality scoring opportunities until the latter part of the second half, and were never able to net the equalizer. Their passing got crisper as the game went on, resulting in some great feeds from the midfielders to the strikers. Yet, as the saying goes, it was just too little too late.
"I thought we were very tentative in the first half. Perhaps we were a little scared of their reputation, especially after they came out flying," said Mackenzie, whose team dropped 11-2-1. "We rushed things in the first half but did settle down in the second."
The second half saw numerous scoring opportunities for both teams. Still, it was the defensive efforts that proved dominant for the two squads.
"I told the girls to walk off the field with their heads up. We hung in there with one of the best teams in the state," said Mackenzie, whose team now waits to find out who they will play in the upcoming Central Jersey Group III tournament. "Our goal coming in was to be competitive and give ourselves a chance to win. We did that but unfortunately we did not come away with the victory. I’m very proud of our girls."
Only one other team was able to defeat WWP-N this season, Steinert, which also happened to advance to the final match of the Mercer County Tournament. Steinert knocked off Princeton Day School in the other semifinal match played Wednesday.
PDS came in having shut out its last four opponents, a streak which ended abruptly when Steinert scored just minutes into the contest. The PDS defense, which helped boast that four-game shutout streak, faltered early. A ball that should have been cleared was not and the Spartans capitalized.
"We had at least two chances to clear the ball on that first goal," PDS coach Ted Harrington said. "If you don’t get the ball out of the box against a quality opponent like Steinert, they’re going to get a good opportunity out of it."
The Spartans added another 10 minutes into the second half, going on to win, 2-1.
"Steinert has a good team, they came ready to play and they played well," said Harrington, whose team dropped to 15-3 on the season.
The game was a tale of two halves for the Panthers.
"We played much better in the second half," said Harrington, whose team’s loss snapped a nine-game win streak. "In the first we didn’t posses the ball as well as we normally do and we didn’t win the 50/50 balls. They simply outhustled us."
And while the Panthers stepped up their performance in the second half, Harrington still felt his team could have played better. Though he didn’t think it was his team’s best effort, he did feel Steinert played very well and will be a tough opponent for Pennington.
In the loss, Lauren Hinkel tallied her 23rd goal of the season. The senior forward scored the only Panther goal with seven minutes left in the game. And while the goal did spark a small surge of offense for PDS, they were left turned away again and again by the Spartans defense.
Despite the loss, Harrington was happy about the tournament.
"We all really enjoyed it," said Harrington, whose team was scheduled to host Lawrenceville in the state Prep A quarterfinals on Thursday. "It is nice to play teams from different areas and have some different competition. We had so many girls step up and play great soccer during this tournament, it really was a lot of fun."
Pennington will face Steinert in the Mercer County Tournament final at 4 p.m. on Saturday at MCCC.