By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
With a 2-0 home win over Burlington City on Monday, the Northern Burlington County Regional High girls’ varsity soccer team ended a seven-game losing streak.
Amanda Reed scored the winning goal for the Greyhounds in the first half.
“Amanda Reed’s goal was a nice one. She chipped it over the goalkeeper’s head from 18 yards out,” said NBC head coach Larry Young, who was very pleased with the victory.
Then in the second half, NBC added an insurance goal which came off a great pass by Julia Logan.
In spite of his club’s 2-13-1 record, Young has had some experiments which have really worked, including starting freshman Jackie Laurenti as a goalkeeper.
“(Laurenti) has not had a bad game. Out of all the goals we’ve given up this year I can think of just two where she hasn’t done a good job,” said Young, who got another great effort out of Laurenti in the game versus the Blue Devils. Pettit also played some goalie in that contest and the two keepers combined to make seven saves.
This season, Young and his coaches have made sure that the girls stay focused by constantly offering them words of encouragement.
“We just keep on reminding them that we’ve been in every single game except for one,” noted Young.
Although Robbinsville topped Northern Burlington 5-0 on Saturday at Northern Burlington, the Greyhounds trailed just 2-0 at the half before things fell apart in short period of time. They were very competitive for a long time in that game and even Robbinsville head coach Karen DeRossett commented on how closely the Greyhounds marked her players.
“We just had a 15-minute funk in the second half where we gave up three goals,” said Young, who has a lot of young players who are learning on the job.
Last spring NBC graduated 10 starters, who started in both of the team’s playoff games last fall. One of those players, Shannon Pennock, is currently starting at Kutztown while another, Kelly Walsh, is getting varsity playing time at Ithaca.
With the loss of so many stars, Young knew his team would be rebuilding this year. However, he has been very encouraged by the progress of such new players as Sam Washington (a sophomore defender), Marissa Dadora (a freshman defensive back), Shambree Bonner (a sophomore forward) and Sam Roynestad ( a sophomore midfielder).
Because girls are more than twice as likely to suffer ACL injuries playing soccer as boys, Young has his girls in an ACL prevention program called PEP, which stands for Prevent injury and Enhance Performance. The exercises seem to be working as the team has had far less injuries (seniors Gianna Greco and Alyssa Semus have missed some time with injuries) than it did last year.
“We do it once a week,” said Young. “It’s a proven program.”
NBC is doing all the right things to be competitive soccer team, but the truth is the younger girls just need to play and veterans like Pettit just need to keep on doing what they’re doing and the club should be good next season. Northern Burlington was scheduled to have played Cinnaminson last night at Mercer County Community College. NBC is scheduled to host Burlington Township on Friday.

