BELMONT — Back during the dog days of August, the Central Catholic High girls’ soccer team had high expectations for this upcoming season.
Coming off a 10-win season, returning 14 players with experience — including a pair of goal scorers who both committed to play at the Div. 1 in college — the pre-season thoughts were this team had enough to make a deep state tournament run.
On a cold and rainy Monday night, those lofty expectations came to a halt as No. 8 seeded Belmont scored just 99 seconds into the game and added another to knock out No. 9 seeded Central Catholic, and end the team’s 18-game unbeaten streak.
“It’s very disappointing. We just said to the girls that tournament time you have to show up and play your best soccer and tonight was not our best performance,” said Central head coach Jami Hayden. “We got scored on early and I think that was a little bit of a mental break. Then we definitely had the momentum at times but we didn’t capitalize. That’s what it’s all about and unfortunately we got stopped tonight.”
The loss, which came after a dominating opening round tournament win over Attleboro High, doesn’t take away from the team’s 16 wins and third straight MVC Div. 1 title.
“The girls had a super season, so we don’t want to take anything away from them,” said Hayden. “They finished with one of the best records the program has seen in a long time. We had a great ride. We dominated the Merrimack Valley and chose some difficult non-league opponents for a reason and it helped us get this far.”
While Stonehill commit Lucy Irwin and senior defender Alyssa Furtado will be two huge losses, Central appears to be loaded for bear again next year.
The Raiders will be returning 17 players who logged varsity experience this season including Brown University commit Sarah Tressler, talented midfielder Addison Brosnihan, as well as a core of other strong players with juniors Molly Rennell, Ciara Sammon, sophomores Chloe Fourtialas and Lucy Sykora and freshman Olivia Swett, among others.
“We have a lot of girls coming back. We’re losing some great, great seniors but I’m excited for August of next year already because we have so many girls coming back. They are already hungry to do just as well,” said Hayden.
Another holdover will be goalie Sarah Parker. Not only has she improved leaps and bounds from a year ago, but she was terrific in the loss to Belmont, making several outstanding stops.
“She played fantastic. She could have got down after Belmont scored that early goal, but we talked at half and told her to use her voice. Then in the second half she made four huge saves and kept us in it. She had a fantastic game,” said Hayden.