WINDHAM—There’s not much to report, honestly.
The Lady Eagles so thoroughly controlled visiting TA on Tuesday evening, May 21, that the outcome of the game was essentially never in doubt. Okay: Maybe before it started Windham prudently reminded themselves nothing is sure in life, and that the Lady Trojans had bested them in 2018. But once the Eagles put up their first five, six, 10 unanswered points, surely they (and their fan contingent) realized that their unblemished record would stay that way.
“They’re playing really hard,” Windham head coach Matt Perkins said. “We’re focused on ourselves, working on our mistakes, working on our play and pushing as hard as we can go. We have a common thing: If you let up, if you don’t go hard, you can’t play. They’ve done a really good job pushing each other to get better.”
15-1 the final as Windham advances to 9-0 on the spring. The Eagles currently rank first in A North, and can call numerous impressive wins their own, including a 7-6 triumph over No. 2 Falmouth, and 11-9 defeat of No. 3 Portland and 16-6 throttling of No. 4 Lewiston.
“It’s a great team win,” Perkins said of the TA bout. “Everybody played, swing players, obviously the starters, played their tails off. They got out, executed on offense and defense, some things we wanted to do in transition. So everybody’s all on board.”
Nine different girls scored for Windham in the victory: Belle Skvorak led the assault with four goals; Izzy Babb, Emma Yale and Riley Beem had two apiece and Riley Hennessey, Alanna Joyce, Carissa O’Connell, Maddy Syphers and Sidney McCusker put up one each. Anna Drummond contributed three assists, and Yale and Beem contributed one per girl.
Beem kicked off the scoring, needing just 28 seconds to find the back of the Trojans’ net. Yale followed her up for 2-0 a few minutes later, and the team was off to the races. Skvorak, Yale again, O’Connell, Joyce, Skvorak twice more, and on and on: Windham built to 11-0 by the break.
Skvorak’s fourth strike, the 10-0 strike, came as she cut brilliantly into the heart of the Trojans’ zone from the top left of her girls’ attacking perimeter; Drummond found her with a precision feed from behind the net and she fired, still on the move. Drummond also assisted on the next goal, Hennessey’s bit of offensive output, which she converted as she lingered, hungered, lurked off the left side of the TA cage.
“They play man defense; they do a really good job on man defense,” Perkins said, asked if TA gave his girls any tough looks. “They’ve got great coaches over there, and kids that play hard. They beat us last year, so we thought we’d have our hands full.”
The Eagles continued to dominate in the downhill half, though they slowed their scoring pace a bit (and even gave up a goal…gasp!) Babb tallied the 13-0 point on a free position, and McCusker the 14-0 point on a free position as well. The Trojans’ lone notch belonged to Isabella White; White managed to beat Windham keeper Logan Carper with roughly eight and a half minutes to play. Three minutes later (give or take) Syphers capped the evening with the Eagles’ 15th, an inside strike.
Windham is firing on all cylinders as the playoffs approach, a state of affairs they’re (naturally) quite happy about. “We’ve had a common goal,” Perkins said. “We’ve got to keep getting better each day. And especially with the weather – you can have three games postponed, suddenly you’ve got three, four games in a row – your practice time can be limited. So you’ve got make sure you’re squared away and working hard. And they’ve done a really good job with that.”
Asked about areas his girls can improve on, Perkins offered a few thoughts: “You know, we dropped the ball a little bit; we’ve got to get a little better at grounders. That will be a big focus tomorrow, going into a game on Thursday.”
Scarborough, South Portland and Kennebunk remain on the Eagles’ regular-season docket.
Adam Birt can be reached at abirt@keepmecurrent.com. Follow him on Twitter: @CurrentSportsME.
Emma Baker carries for the Lady Eagles.
Carissa O’Connell keeps her eye on the action as a teammate works the attack.
Morgan Coleangelo unwinds into a pass for the attacking Eagles.
Anna Drummond recorded three assists for the Lady Eagles in their walloping of TA.
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