Woodstown girls soccer players receive unique rewards for getting things done on the field
GIRLS SOCCER
Gloucester Catholic at Penns Grove
Pennsville at Overbrook
Woodstown 4, Clayton 0
Pitman at Schalick
FIELD HOCKEY
Maple Shade at Schalick
GIRLS TENNIS
Schalick at Pennsville
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
CLAYTON – Bella Lucas cradled two small pieces of plastic in the palm of her hand. They were just simple beads, but for what they represented the freshman treated them like diamonds.
The Woodstown girls soccer coaches have come up with a novel way of rewarding their players for success this season – beads to attach to a string that hangs on their bag. Football players get helmet decals, Woodstown girls soccer players get beads.
Different colors for different categories – blue for goals, orange for assists, white for shutouts and silver Player of the Game. Lucas held beads of blue and orange for the goal and assist she recorded in the Wolverines’ 4-0 blanking of Clayton at Haupt Field Monday.
“It’s brand new this year,” Wolverines coach Kieran Keyser said. “It was actually my wife’s idea; it’s nice to have that supportive wife.
“We were just talking about things to build camaraderie, to bond the team and something to work for. Obviously, it’s something you can celebrate and just for the girls to work towards. It’s fun.”
Lucas’ goal was worth more than a couple baubles. It opened the floodgates. The Wolverines (11-2-1) dominated the chances in a scoreless first half, but didn’t have anything to show for it. When Lucas’ swinging-gate goal found the back of the net in the 48th minute, it touched off a flurry of four goals in 18 minutes that carried the Wolverines to their fifth straight victory and 99th since the start of the 2019 season.
Genevieve Flynn got the play started with a free kick to 30 yards out and Lucas kept it moving by swinging her right leg around her body with her back to the goal. It was the defensive center midfielder’s eighth goal of the season. The Wolverines are 8-0 in game she has scored a goal.
Then it started. Ten minutes later sophomore Kyrsten Dussault sent a bouncing ball in on an open goal that Clayton defender Mya Pinkey couldn’t run down in time. Freshman Korynn Hernandez made it 3-0 less than four minutes later (with an assist from Lucas) and sophomore Gabby Maldonado made it 4-0 four minutes after that.
“I feel like sometimes it just takes that one goal for our whole team to go,” Lucas said. “It just takes that one set up all working as a team together and then one person scores and it kind of just happens.”
For Hernandez it was her 17th goal of the season, tying Woodstown’s freshman single-season goal record, held by Tatum Devault, the program’s all-team leading goal scorer (75).
In all, assistant coach Maddi Burlingame passed around 18 beads from the game – four goals, four assists, five to the back line and keeper Mazie Massoni for their eighth shutout and to the same group for Player of the Game. Captains received gold beads at the start of the season.
At this rate, Keyser just might run out of beads before the Wolverines run out of games.
“That would be pretty cool,” Lucas said.
“We’re good so far,” Keyser said. “I think I’ve bought enough, but I’ll have to go back and check.”
This story will be updated.
