Sports

Stevens Rebounds After Loss

By Christopher Shaban
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CLAREMONT- After a half where the visiting Huskies played their best game all year, the Cardinals dug deep to grab a 4-1 win to improve to 10-1 on the season. “This team figured things out, that is a sign of maturity,” said Cardinals coach Tim St. Pierre after the game.

With Maddy LaVarnway and Maddy Minckler firing away at Monadnock goalie Bailee Soucia, who made her first start in net ever, Stevens just couldn’t get going and seemed lethargic at times during the first half that ended in a scoreless 40 minutes. Stevens controlled play for much of the half but had nothing to show for it. The Husky defense was superb in front of Soucia, with Julia Hoden and Bree Lawrence playing as well as they did when they won the basketball championship last season, they were everywhere the ball was.

“I don’t know why but we seem to be a second half team, we need to correct that, but we took charge today when we needed to,” said Stevens senior Aiden Antonivich.

Stella Lavertue opened the second half with a goal in the opening minute, then when Brianna Marsh rang the post, it seemed like the Cardinals had regained their composure and control of the game. Monadnock would respond to tie things 1-1 before Minckler took over. The junior striker was ridden off a rush to net but the second time she just muscled defenders out of the way before she planted one in the net to give Stevens the lead back, 2-1. “I was a little frustrated early, but that first goal gave me lots of confidence, Tori (Dalke) made a great pass and I wanted to finish strong,” said Minckler.

The Cardinals were feeling it, with big back-to-back saves off the leg of Lavertue as the momentum was clearly in the Stevens offensive side of the field. “Those goals gave us a tremendous amount of confidence, we started to push the ball up the field and began to make some quality runs on net,” said Lavertue.

The attacks on Monadnock began in the midfield where Dalke, Antonivich and Alyssa Paquette really began to take charge. “We just became really hungry, our confidence grew quickly, and our slot passes started to find feet,” said Paquette. Slick passing from Dalke to Lavertue eventually found the leg of Minckler as she hit the net twice more to extend the Cardinal lead to 4-1, with her last goal starting with her being taken to the ground but she got up tracked the ball down and fired a shot past the Husky keeper.

“We have a target on our backs,” said St. Pierre as the Cardinals currently sit in 3rd place in Division 3 with more wins (10-1) than anyone else. “We hate to lose but that loss to St. Thomas has lit a fire inside of us and gave us more of a purpose,” said Dalke.

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