Pirates fall to unbeaten Steinert in MCT soccer
By: Bob Nuse
Not many teams have given the Steinert High girls’ soccer team a run for its money this season.
But after Wednesday night, West Windsor-Plainsboro South has now done it twice.
The Pirates, who dropped a 1-0 overtime decision to the Spartans during the regular season, fell to top-seeded Steinert, 1-0, in the Mercer County Tournament semifinals at Mercer County Community College.
With the loss, the Pirates fell to 13-3 and will prepare for the Central Jersey Group IV tournament, which begins next week. With the win, Steinert advanced to face third-seeded Hopewell Valley in tonight’s final. The Bulldogs upset second-seeded Pennington in overtime on Wednesday.
"We didn’t give them quite the game today that we would have liked to," said WW-P South coach Chris Miller, whose team was outshot, 18-7, in the loss. "We were out-offensed by quite a bit. They had a tremendous amount of shots, comparatively speaking.
"We did play more defensive with just one person up top. Then we tried to push people up at the end. But everybody on their team is offensive minded. Their defense gets into it. They play the kind of soccer that every coach is hoping they are going to get their team to play."
The Pirates have now gone more than 180 minutes without scoring a goal against Steinert this season. But, at the same time, they have held the high-powered Spartan offense to just two goals.
In the loss on Wednesday, South played most of the game without freshman sweeper Erin Simon, who left the game in the first half with an apparent concussion. When that happened, Miller needed to move some players around, which took away from the offense to aid the defense.
"When Erin Simon went down we had to switch some people around," Miller said. "We had to move an offensive playmaker out of the center to take her spot at sweeper. I think that hurt us in terms of being a little more offensive. We moved Kira Mangone back there and she did a tremendous job."
Megan Voigtsberger was also moved back to stopper, which took away from the offense. Steinert got the only goal of the game just minutes into the second half, when Jessica Babice scored for the 18th straight game for the 18-0 Spartans. Babice has scored both Spartan goals against the Pirates this season.
"Our girls are so conscience of her that we’re always marking her tight and giving up some offense," said Miller, whose team will open state tournament play at home against Old Bridge on Monday. "But Steinert has so many weapons on offense that it’s hard to mark everyone. If you try to mark them all, someone will get free and burn you."
It probably also didn’t help to have to play on a larger field at MCCC, as opposed to their own field at home.
"Our field is smaller," Miller said. "We have not really played that well on a big turf field. We don’t have an opportunity to practice on a field like this and it takes a while to get used to the speed of the ball."
The Pirates stayed close for much of the night, but in the end the Spartans again came away with the one-goal win.
In consolation-round games on Wednesday, WW-P North played Notre Dame to a 2-2 tie. Caitlin Wilson and Melissa Kuzbyt scored goals for the Knights, who are 8-5-3 on the season. The Knights are the No. 10 seed for the CJ III tournament and will play at No. 7 Northern Burlington on Monday.
Princeton fell to Hightstown, 6-1, as Carter Haughton scored the only goal for the Little Tigers. The loss came on the heels of a 6-2 loss to Pennington the MCT semis. The Little Tigers, who are now 9-6-1 on the season, are seeded ninth in the CJ III tournament and will play at No. 8 Monroe on Monday.
Princeton Day topped Ewing, 3-0, as Niki Asimacopoulos, Meg Reilly and Keely Langdon all scored goals. Maddy Ferguson made 12 saves for the shutout in goal as the Panthers improved to 10-5-1. They were scheduled to face Peddie in the state Prep A semifinals on Thursday.

