By Jess Thomas
The Nashoba Girls Soccer team battled heat and humidity in a scrimmage against Winchester at NRHS, coming out victorious with a 4-0 score on Monday, September 1.
The two teams played four 20-minute periods with a water break in between each, as Nashoba pushed through with a strong offensive and defensive effort. There were a number of substitutions due to both the weather and the coaching staff assessing the players in preparation for the season opener, on Tuesday, Sept. 9 in Westborough.
Winchester was constantly on the defensive as Nashoba kept the ball comfortably on the visitors’ side of the field for the majority of the contest.
New head coach Renee Moulton said after the game, “I think our strong point is that they’ve played tremendous defense up and down the field.”
In the short time that Moulton has been with the team, she sees the players coming together and is encouraged by the defense and sees the offense coming along.
“I think that what we’re going to need to really work on is finishing,” Moulton said.
She noted the great opportunities the team has been getting to score, but wants to see improvement on scoring on more of those chances.
The squad had no trouble scoring in the scrimmage, however, as they wore down Winchester’s defense, en route to three goals in a 10-minute span early in the second half.
Already leading 1-0 with one half down, senior center midfielder Kylie Lance executed a score with a header off of a well placed corner kick in front of the goal.
Lance is impressed with the offense early on in the year.
“Our forwards are really fast and our center mids are pretty good at putting the balls through, and the forwards know to make those runs, so together it’s really easy for us to penetrate the defense,” Lance said.
The scoring barrage continued one minute later when Nashoba tallied their third goal on a breakaway opportunity.
The scrimmage was put completely out of reach on a kick that was tipped off of Winchester’s goalie’s hand into the goal, the fourth for Nashoba.
Senior center midfielder Hanna Konash also spoke about the offense.
“Our midfielders are really solid, even the subs coming in are solid,” Konash said. “Our forwards are really fast and no matter what formation we play; if we have two up there, if we have three up there, they’re all really fast and have really good movement off the ball.”
Moulton spoke highly of the work that the nine seniors have put in to make the team better.
“All of them have worked hard. They’re pushing the younger kids, they organized everything in the offseason, ran the captains practice, summer league, and they’re the leaders that have been out here every day.” Moulton said. “That group has held us together and they’re pulling us as we move forward.”
Moulton’s focus this year will to keep the squad focused on day-to-day issues and improving for the next day.
Nashoba will be looking to build on last year when they lost in the district semifinals to Algonquin by a 1-0 score.
“We only lost two seniors from last year, so it’s a lot of the same people,” Konash said. “We get along really well and work together really well. We’ve been playing together for so long it’s just natural.”
“Last year we did pretty good in the regular season, but we didn’t do as well as we wanted in the playoffs,” Lance said. “This year, I definitely think we’re trying to go all the way.”
In their opening game on Tuesday, the team tied Westborough, 1-1.