Woodstown strikes in final minute of first half, beats Pennsville in opening round of South Jersey Group I girls soccer tournament; top-seeded Schalick draws first-round bye
| SJ GROUP 1 GIRLS SOCCER TOURNAMENT |
| FIRST ROUND GAMES | SATURDAY QUARTERFINALS |
| Schalick bye | Glassboro at Schalick, 10 a.m. |
| Glassboro 2, Pitman 0 | Audubon at Palmyra |
| Audubon 6, Buena 0 | Haddon Twp. at Clayton, 2:30 p.m. |
| Palmyra 7, Wildwood 0 | Woodstown at Gateway |
| Clayton 9, Woodbury 1 | |
| Haddon Twp. 8, Maple Shade 0 | |
| Woodstown 2, Pennsville 0 | |
| Gateway 7, Cape May Tech 0 |
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
WOODSTOWN — The two teams on the pitch were locked in a scoreless tug-of-war. Woodstown was getting the best of it but after repeated attacks had nothing to show for it. As the clock hit the final minute Wolverines coach Kieran Keyser was starting to make mental plans for the second half.
Then in the blink of an eye the whole complexion of the match changed.
Sophie Wells sent a bouncing ball towards the goal that the Pennsville keeper couldn’t corral and just that quickly the Wolverines had the lead 30 seconds before halftime.
It was the kind of jolt that energized the Wolverines and sent the Eagles, who had thought they were holding their own, into the break looking to regroup.
With a renewed sense of fire, Woodstown kept the pressure up in the second half, added a more conventional goal from freshman Hailey Kucharczuk in the eighth minute of the half and went on to win 2-0 in the opening round of the South Jersey Group 1 girls soccer tournament.
“Our first half we started off really strong, really fast,” Keyser said. “We came out firing right away and I think our girls maybe got a little frustrated when we didn’t score when we had a couple chances early and I thought we deflated a little bit about halfway through the first half. We didn’t have that intensity.
“Having that goal right before the half gave us the momentum we needed. It was a lucky goal. Sometimes you gotta get shots, sometimes you get lucky. That carried us into the second half and I thought we played way better in the second half. We played our game the second half.”
Wells admitted it was weird goal and a shot she didn’t expect to go in. “I thought it was just going to be an ordinary shot,” she said. She agreed it did bring the Wolverines energy after a “stressful” first half.
As shocking as the goal was in its arrival, it didn’t devastate the Eagles as much as one might think. They created more chances in the second half although the Wolverines were successful keeping the ball down in Pennsville’s end.
The Eagles got their first real shot of the game three minutes into the second half when Marley Wood broke in on the keeper and Ellie Wygand saved a soft shot. Wygand turned back a sharper shot from Taylor Bass 10 minutes later and went on to complete her ninth shutout of the season.
“At halftime we just needed to get the girls’ heads back in the game, get them to lock in and refocus,” Pennsville coach Casey Slusher said. “They kept playing the whole game; they played the whole game. They didn’t give up. At all.”
Kucharczuk gave the Wolverines a little more breathing room with her 10th goal of the season. She took a throw-in from Ally Sheppard, deked around several defenders in the box and put one inside the near post from the 6.
“When I have the chance I definitely take them and it’s definitely great when it all works out,” Kucharczuk said.
The seventh-seeded Wolverines (14-3-1) now play at Gateway (16-1) in Saturday’s quarterfinals. The second-seeded Gators routed Cape May Tech Wednesday 7-0.
Riverview Sports News 