THE RICHMOND HIGH SCHOOL girls soccer team defeated Van Buren 4-1 Saturday for the State Class D Championship. In the top photo, Danica Hurley gets congratulated by Sadie Gosse (7) and Taylor Clapp after scoring a goal; Richmond’s Noell Acord (2) meets up with Van Buren goaltender Ashley Wilson; and Richmond’s Payton Johnson shows everyone who’s numberone.
And for the second straight year, the Bobcats from the West prevailed, this time getting two late goals en route to a chilly 4-1 victory over the Crusaders, the game played Saturday on Falmouth High School’s turf.
Richmond, which beat Van Buren 1-0 last fall, weathered a second-half Crusaders push and a goal by Natasha Bourgoin with 3:48 left. The score cut Richmond’s lead in half (2-1).
And just 37 seconds later game-long standout Danica Hurley scored on a breakaway as Wilson came out near the 18 to cut off the angle, Hurley slipped around her and fired on an empty net to seal the deal.
“It got a little frustrating in the second half, but I think we also got a little ahead of ourselves,’ said Richmond’s Sadie Gosse. “We knew that Parise Rossignol had all those goals (33) and that she could volley the ball out of the air. So we didn’t want to give her any opportunities.
“ I was hoping that we’d make it this far, but I also knew that we had enough will-power to get this game.”
Richmond came out of the gates on all cylinders. With a healthy wind at their backs, the Bobcats made life miserable for Wilson and fellow defenders Kayla Durette, Natasha Bourgoin and Ashley Martin with Bourgoin shadowing Hurley.
A couple of Gosse corner kicks caused a few problems for Van Buren and Taylor Clapp scored her first goal of the season in traffic, the ball trickling ever-so-slowly into the goal.
That goal came just four minutes into the game and 4: 04 later a Gosse corner found Hurley all alone in the far corner.
A Payton Johnson header off a Gosse corner sailed over the bar at the 12-minute mark, Hurley nailed the bar off a Gosse corner at 16:20, and direct kick from Gosse with nine minutes left was gobbled up in traffic by Wilson, who made 10 first-half saves.
“We had talked to the girls about getting off to a fast start because in the Greenville game (West final, 0-0 at the half) we started out really slow,” said Richmond coach Troy Kendrick. “We told them that we needed to get out a little quicker. In talking to some of the coaches up north we knew that if they scored a goal on us early, they’d just bunker down defensively and we didn’t want that.”
In the second half, Richmond’s transition from defense to offense was classic and resulted in several semibreakaways, but Wilson was simply up to the task with several acrobatic saves.
Wilson robbed Hurley early with a diving tip-out save and Richmond goaltender Lynsy Hoopingarner also came up big midway through the half.
Van Buren’s Bourgoin was wide right from in close on a Chantal Rioux corner as the Crusaders picked up the pace, but Richmond defenders like Sage Strout, Katie Webster, Haley Murphy, Leandra Martin, Ciarra Lancaster, Andra Meagher and Bri Snedeker, stood out as well.
Finally, Bourgoin scored off a Rossignol feed with 3: 48 remaining to set up the Bobcats’ late-game heroics.
“We told the girls at halftime that Van Buren was a good team and that they were not going to lay down,” added Kendrick. “And, it’s a natural inclination that if you get out to a lead then you want to sit back and defend. We wanted them to keep attacking and put pressure on their kids. They made us work for everything, so it was really nice to see us come right back after they scored on us and get that insurance goal.”
“I went in knowing it would be a tough game because we played them last year,” said Hurley. “We knew they didn’t lose a lot of people and we knew that Rossignol was tough. But, we really wanted this.”
The opening pressure was big, admitted Hurley. “Definitely. Getting those early goals was very important to us because if they had scored first than I knew their gameplan would be to bunker up on defense. We were a little nervous, but we started the game like ‘we need to score first!’ and ‘ we need to stay ahead of the game!’ Or, we’d be in trouble.
“I was a little frustrated in the second half. I was manmarked the whole game … she was all over me and I really couldn’t move.”
“You know, because we had so many kids coming back, there was a lot of expectations,” said Kendrick, who picked up his eighth Gold Ball. “ I think the girls are happy and relieved because of those high expectations.”
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