SWAMPSCOTT — The girls soccer team beat Salem with a rain-soaked 4-0 victory Monday evening, keeping Big Blue unbeaten through seven games.
Senior Mia Schena scored early in the first half of the game, giving Big Blue a 1-0 lead. Freshman Ava Odonnell, who had come in for senior Abby Eichler in the final minutes of the first half scored, as the whistle blew for the half bringing Swampscott’s lead to 2-0.
“We just wanted to come and play. When it’s rainy things tend to get a little wild but we scored early and our girls played really well,” said Swampscott’s Coach Ken Leeder. “It was a nice win and Salem played hard today.”
Senior Laine Foutes score the third goal on a penalty shot after Fiona Keaney was fouled. Eichler found herself a goal towards the end of the second half leading to the final score of 4-0.
“We wanted to work on passing the ball today and I thought we did a good job of it,” said Leeder. “May (Raymond) played really well today she’s our center back.”
Even with Salem being on the defense for most of the game, the Witches fought hard.
“We wanted to play them with intensity and toughness. We have a very, very young team here … [with] only four seniors. At this point [we’re] learning how to basically keep everybody in the game,” said Salem’s coach Eric Farley. “One thing we have is we have a lot of wit. We are such a young club but in the meantime, we’re developing more as a team and the camaraderie is huge right now.”
“Lizzy Reed played well up top, while Mallory McCarthy was a standout on defense did great as well, and Kai Gillis as well. Ari Siolt was our utility player and she’s actually never played the game before,” said Farley.
Both sides playing hard led to a lot of offside calls, mainly on Swampscott.
“Salem played a really high backline which set the offside trap for us. We have never practiced against an offsides trap before,” said Swampscott’s goalie, Lillian Gosselin. “It was something we haven’t seen at this point in the season. It was a little new to us but I think we got used to it as the game went on.”
“There’s a lot of talent on the Salem team and we were able to get a lot of good work in while playing them. It definitely helps us while looking forward to the rest of the season. We still have to play Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, and Masconoment who are all good teams. It was definitely a good game even though we made a good amount of mistakes like the offsides but I think that’s good for us,” Swampscott’s May Raymond added. “It’s something that we’re going to be practicing on and we’ll be watching our lines going forward.”
Maddi Filip can be reached at [email protected].
