LYNNFIELD — It may have taken the No. 6 Lynnfield girls soccer team a little time to find its rhythm, but once it did, there was no stopping the Pioneers, who defeated No. 27 Old Rochester 5-0 in the Division 3 Round of 32 Wednesday at Pioneer Stadium.
Scoreless through 18 minutes, the game was up for grabs with both teams generating quality chances, but neither could break through. That all changed in a heartbeat with a little more than 21 minutes left in the half, when the Pioneers scored two goals within a span of a minute to seize all the momentum.
Juniors Kaylee Barrett (3 goals, assist), Ava Damian (2 goals, assist), and Hannah Doherty (2 assists) had monster games.
“You know that anyone in the tournament can do anything, so you can’t take anyone for granted,” said Lynnfield coach Mark Vermont. “They already had a game under their belt and it took us a while to shake off the cobwebs with the long layoff we had and we moved a couple of people around and that really settled things down for us.”
“I think we’re mostly a young team and we knew this was going to be a much more difficult test than we’ve had most of the year. Those two (Damiani and Barrett) were the most dangerous players we’ve faced all year,” said Old Rochester coach Jeff Lombard. “I was really happy with the first 20 minutes. I felt we were bending but not breaking and kept hanging around, doing the things we had talked about doing. But we just don’t have the depth and they did.”
Damiani finally broke the ice for the Pioneers at the 18:51 mark of the first half, taking a feed from Barrett and ripping a shot under the crossbar to stake Lynnfield to a 1-0 lead.
A minute later, Doherty found Barrett on the left side, who beat Bulldogs’ goalie Marley Mailloux with a bullet inside the far post to double the lead to 2-0. Lynnfield, which outshot Old Rochester 39-7, dominated the rest of the half, but the Bulldogs’ defense held.
“We knew we needed to keep moving the ball and we would find our legs — and that’s what happened,” Vermont said. “We knew it was coming and then it was bang, bang.”
The pivotal moment of the game came just seconds into the second half when Damiani finished a feed from Doherty to stretch the Pioneers’ lead to 3-0.
“That third one was huge coming out of halftime,” Vermont said. “We always say that the third goal is always big.”
“That one really hurt,” Lombard said. “It hurt when they got that one right at the start of the next half.”
With 20 minutes to go, Barrett struck again, blasting a shot from in tight that deflected off a defender just inside the far post to make it a 4-0 game. Barrett completed her hat trick at the 10:59 mark, taking a beautiful feed from Damiani and drilling it past Mailloux to complete the scoring.
Junior goalie Victoria Minor earned the shutout, finishing with nine saves.
Vermont said he was happy to have the luxury of resting his starters and giving his bench players good minutes.
“It was good to get them in there. They had some great scoring chances, especially from (senior captain) Ava Cook. That was a rope,” Vermont said. “It was important to get those minutes under their belts because you never know what might be needed going forward.”
Vermont gave a shoutout to several players postgame.
“With Kaylee and Ava working some combinations and (senior captain) Bella Sykes being just so composed all the time, it was a really strong effort,” Vermont said. “Freshman Ella Pascucci found her legs and juniors Jordan Calichman and Adriana Regitano as well as (sophomore) Abby Tsatskis on defense were really solid. (Junior) Sofia Giardina did a great job on the outside. Overall, it was just a good, solid team win.”
Next up for the Pioneers is a Sweet 16 date with No. 11 Auburn, which defeated No. 22 Weston 4-0 Wednesday night.
“Auburn plays some really tough teams and is always strong, so we know it’s going to be a battle, ” Vermont said. “We just need to keep it rolling.”
