Brookline girls blank Andover to make soccer final

After a disappointing loss in the state semifinals last year, Brookline’s 2019 mission was clear: reach the state finals — and win.

Step one of that mission is complete as the No. 3 Warriors (15-1-5) shut out No. 4 Andover, 2-0, at Manning Field to repeat as Div. 1 North champions.

“It is a big thing,” said senior midfielder Eleanor Fisher, “[but] our coach is telling us not to touch the trophy because it’s not what we want. It’s huge but we really want to go farther than this.”

Fisher dominated play for Brookline, scoring the tiebreaking goal and assisting on the second to Samantha Friedman. Fisher’s goal came five minutes into the second half as the senior midfielder received the ball in the final third of Andover’s half and uncorked a rocketing shot that soared past keeper Izzy Shih.

“We had been passing around their final third for so long,” said Fisher, “This keeper we heard was really good. I was taking that shot, honestly did not think it would go in, but we had to test her and we hadn’t yet so I thought might as well try.”

Later in the half, Brookline found their second goal off the foot of Friedman, who tapped in a ball from Fisher that Andover failed to clear.

“She’s the center of almost everything we do,” said coach Rob Sprague of Fisher’s impact, “I don’t think it should she missed what a great job she did defending. If we did one of those heat maps, she’s probably covered ninety percent of the field today. She’s an incredible player, incredible athlete.”

The first half was largely a quiet one as both sides played stifling defense. Brookline managed to win the possession battle during the half but struggled to generate any serious scoring chances.

“Just waiting for our chance to come. We were finding a lot of possession. They were holding so many defenders back that we were having trouble finding spaces for shots,”  said Sprague.

Offensive struggles aside, Brookline’s defense proved to be impenetrable all afternoon. Andover’s lone scoring chance came on an Ava Trapp header following a corner kick. Unfortunately for Andover, Trapp couldn’t get enough juice on the header to trouble Brookline keeper Juliana Anastopoulos, who made the save.

“Our defense, I think, is probably the best in the state,” said Fisher, “we’ve gone the season not letting up many goals and it’s not a shocker that we didn’t today.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2NUtXlb