ADAMS -- With a pair of first-half goals, the Hoosac Valley girls' soccer team was in complete control at halftime. The problem was the Hurricanes let themselves think it.
Drury cut the deficit in half with Chelsea DeGroff's goal in the 56th minute, but Hoosac's Danielle Beauchemin countered with two more goals to lift the Hurricanes to a 4-1 win. Her hat trick ensured the Hurricanes would not fall behind in the race for the South Division.
The Hurricanes entered Monday's game tied with Mount Greylock atop the division standings. Each had 10 points in six games played. The win pushes Hoosac in front of idle Greylock by two points, but the Mounties now have a game in hand.
"I told the girls [at halftime] there wasn't one thing in the first half I was unpleased with, everything was a perfect game," Hoosac coach Blair Mahar said. "But I said to them ‘Girls, be prepared because you know how Drury comes out, they always do. They always come out strong and they get fired up.' And they did."
Hoosac dominated the first half, but was having the game taken to it for the first 25 minutes of the second, and it nearly cost the Hurricanes two points.
Just two minutes into the half, Cori Ghidotti served a ball into the box. Danielle Racette rose for a header only to see the ball sail just above her head. Five minutes later, Racette found herself behind the Hoosac defense waiting for a service to land in front of her.
That changed when DeGroff pushed a rebound past a sprawling Meg Richardson. Richardson, who was barely tested in the first half, had just made a diving save to her right, but she couldn't control the rebound. DeGroff was there to take advantage.
Drury had dominated the second half and finally had something to show for it. All the 50-50 battles the Blue Devils had won now meant something. Coach Molly Meczywor called a time out before play resumed.
"They're very ... calm. Sometime we have those rah-rah leaders and we don't really have that this year. So the hope was we were going to kind of pump them up," Meczywor said. "The kids on the bench were loud, they we re excited. Just to kind of give them some positive motivation there."
It couldn't have worked worse for her and the Blue Devils.
"I think you could see the fire in the girls' eyes that you know, this can't be a 2-1 game, this can't be a 2-2 game," Mahar said of his team during the time out.
Hoosac refocused, started winning the battles in the midfield again and was playing like it had in the first half. The Hurricanes were getting quality chances, but Ali Tatro was turning everything away. She came out of no where to rob Meg Rodowicz's left-footer that was destined for side netting with just under seven minutes to play. Thirty seconds later, she stuffed Abby Chaput on a point-blank chance.
The Hurricanes were taking notice.
"She's an amazing goalie and fortunately I had some pretty crazy shots [Monday], so [that] kept us in the game, as well," Beauchemin said.
With 5:57 remaining, Beauchemin used one of those shots from the right edge of the 18 to deflate Drury and thwart any thoughts of a comeback. She completed her hat trick with 1:43 left.
"We're the kind of team that rallies together when we need to and that was a definite point in time when needed to turn around and rally together and step up even more than we had been," Beauchemin said. "That time out, it gave us that chance to regroup and talk about it and just rally behind each other."
To reach Josh Colligan, email
jcolligan@thetranscript.com.
On Twitter: @NAT_DigitalJosh
Font Resize
