Knight girls’ soccer wins first
By: Justin Feil
Over the last two years, West Windsor-Plainsboro North has graduated 14 from its girls’ soccer team that reached the Central Jersey Group III final.
It has left this year’s Knights with few players who had significant playing time for those state tournament teams, few who have known the killer instinct it takes to be that good. Emily Grato is a welcome exception.
The Knights’ captain is the only senior among three on the entire team to have played as a freshman. She began her career with the Knights as a forward before moving to the midfield, and last year she filled in at stopper due to injuries. This year, she is appropriately enough back in the center midfield dictating WW-P North’s play.
"Emily has been there for four years," said WW-P North head coach Kevin Mackenzie. "She’s been overshadowed by some of the players that came before her, like the seven seniors last year and the seven before that. But I can’t say enough great things about her this year. She has a great attitude, a great work ethic. She’s been a great captain. She’s really stepped up for us. She’s one of reasons that we’ve been able to handle the rough start. She’s stayed positive with her teammates."
Grato didn’t see any alternative when the Knights started the season 0-2, one loss coming at the hands of a Hopewell Valley team that returns all but one starter from last year and the other a 2-0 loss to Hightstown despite outplaying the Rams for much of the game. The Knights earned their first win of the season, 1-0, against Robbinsville on Tuesday.
"We only had two games," Grato said. "It wasn’t enough to have a negative outlook. We have so many more games left. You need to stay positive. If we didn’t stay positive, this win wouldn’t have been possible."
WW-P North, which was scheduled to face 4-0 Princeton on Thursday, got something that was missing in the Hightstown game to secure its first win of the year when freshman Emiko Edwards scored with four minutes left in the game.
"We finally finished a goal," Mackenzie said. "It’s only our third game. Hopewell, we just got beat. Hightstown, we dominated the game and played well, but lacked creativity up front. We didn’t generate a lot of opportunities.
"Today we did, but we just didn’t finish until four minutes to go with a freshman. I just pulled up three girls from JV. I was a lot worried. It would have been the second game in a row where we felt we pretty much controlled the game and we were potentially facing overtime where anything can happen. We finally broke through and put one away and hopefully that’s a stepping stone to better things."
Grato certainly believes the win can help a young WW-P North squad. Her role in keeping the team positive through the slow start will go a long way toward ensuring more wins down the road.
"I think the win is a big step in our season," Grato said. "I think we can go from here on in and be successful.
"It’s a lot different than years past. The upperclassmen are stepping up to fill the roles of what the seniors did in past years. It’s still challenging. I think as long as we keep the team together and close and it’s a good environment to practice and we work hard, and we do those things, we’ll be fine."
The Knights are still a work in progress, but they have shown plenty of promising signs. While WW-P North may lack overall experience, they have the skill to compensate for it. Beyond that, the Knights are working on the instinct to earn wins when they deserve them.
"We move the ball very well offensively," Mackenzie said. "We make a lot of short passes. We possess the ball effectively. We have a good work rate on the team. Emily Grato is doing a good job in the midfield. We have a strong goalie in Lily Pepper. We’re young, and we’re doing some good things. We have to learn to put opponents away. There are times we have to play with more of a sense of urgency. We can’t wait for something to happen."
The Knights did that against a team in a similar situation Tuesday. Robbinsville is in its first varsity year, and is playing without any seniors. WW-P North has built a strong reputation with success in the last two seasons, but it could hardly be considered a veteran team, even compared to Robbinsville.
"I only have three seniors," Mackenzie said. "We’re a pretty young group."
Added Grato: "At times, mentally our inexperience can show. Other than that, there’s not much of a difference. Our team is skilled. The only thing we lack is experience."
The Knights took a step in the right direction with Tuesday’s game. Not only did they win, but they seemed to approach the game a little more aggressively than in their first two contests.
"I think today we came out with more emotion," Grato said. "You could tell we wanted to win.
"Every day, there’s something we can improve on. It’s very early in the season. As we go on, we’ll start to capitalize on the things we need to work on."
Grato knows full well the keys to picking up the big wins. Not only has she been a big part of the Knights previous success, but she has older siblings, Kyle who is playing at Rutgers University, and Stephanie, who played for the earliest WW-P North soccer squads and enjoyed success. Now, she is trying to lead the way for a young Knights crew.
"From the beginning, I didn’t know what to expect," Grato said. "From preseason camp, I knew we could compete and go just as far as we did in the past."
The first step there was getting their first win. The Knights did so Tuesday and look to build on it as they continue play in the Colonial Valley Conference at Hamilton on Tuesday.
"The win today was big," Mackenzie said. "We had to win today. I told the girls it was a must-win situation. It’s a sigh of relief. We’re 1-2. We still have 11 games to play. We’re in the thick of things. I told them we’re going to be playing games like this all year. We’re going to playing close, tight games, not blowing teams out like last year. I do think we’re improving. I see this as a team that will just continually get better."

