PEABODY — After battling to a scoreless tie through the first 68 minutes of the game, the Bishop Fenwick girls soccer team scored three goals in the final 12 minutes of play to take down Arlington Catholic in a Catholic Central League matchup at Donaldson Stadium on Senior Night Wednesday.
“They definitely made me nervous in the first half, but Arlington Catholic did a great job of battling and kept us off the board for most of the game,” said Fenwick coach Steve Flaherty, whose Crusaders are the No. 10-ranked team in Division 3 according to the latest MIAA power rankings. “The girls played really well and kept fighting the whole time, and we were finally able to break through there in the second part of the second half.”
Prior to the game, the Crusaders honored their group of nine seniors — Claudia Keith, Molly Jenkins, Ella Morgan, Emma Burke, Isabella DelVecchio, Aisling Hinchey, Amy Hatfield, McKenna Gilligan and Katie Dunne — for their contributions to the program over the years.
“I’ll tell you what, this is an incredible group of seniors and I’m going to miss them very much when they’re gone,” said Flaherty. “I’ve had them for four years and they’ve been a huge part of the program and hopefully we can finish this season off on a high note for them.”
The two teams went back and forth for the majority of the first half, with each team earning a number of scoring opportunities throughout the period. But both defenses and both goalkeepers kept the teams off the board, and the two squads went into the halftime break still tied at 0-0.
The first 20 minutes of the second half went by in a very similar fashion, with each team earning two corner opportunities and coming close but still not getting on the scoreboard.
But finally, with 12 minutes to go in the game, Morgan hit Ally Mitchell on a pass in the box and Mitchell fired a shot on net. The shot was stopped by the Arlington Catholic keeper, but the ball bounced right onto the foot of Jenkins, who slipped a shot under the crossbar to give the Crusaders a 1-0 lead.
The goal seemed to free up the Crusaders, and about six minutes later Morgan fired a shot from nearly 40 yards out that snuck under the crossbar and gave Fenwick a 2-0 lead. The scoring was capped off by Gilligan, who also fired a deep shot — this one from about 30 yards out — to round out the scoring and give them the 3-0 victory.
Fenwick (6-0-4) travels to Bishop Stang for another CCL matchup Saturday morning (10).
“We’ve just got to keep taking things one game at a time,”said Flaherty. “We can’t be looking at the schedule or looking ahead, because we’ve got a tough test against Bishop Stang on Saturday and we have to remain focused on that.”
