EASTHAMPTON — With the seconds ticking down in the first half, Easthampton captain Maria Belfakih took the game into her own hands.
Knotted at 0-0 against Granby and nearing halftime, Belfakih charged towards the net, following a pass from Ana Growhowski that was headed towards Granby keeper Eleanor Szlosek. Szlosek got in front of the ball, but it ricocheted off her to Belfakih, who collected the rebound and got around her, firing the ball into a wide open net in the final seconds to break the stalemate. Less than 10 seconds after the game resumed, the referees whistled the end of the first half.
“I didn’t know it was that close,” Easthampton head coach Brian Miller said on Belfakih’s goal. “That’s a drill we work on, the crashing and then the second effort and staying with it. It was a total effort sort of goal, obviously pretty timely with seconds left.”
Belfakih’s goal stood as the only tally of the game in a 1-0 final. Easthampton improved to 6-2-1 on the season, while Granby fell to 1-3-3.
Though the Rams walked away with the loss, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Down 1-0 after the first 40 minutes, the Rams exploded in the second half, peppering Easthampton keeper Addie Barr and keeping the possession on their half of the field until the final minutes. By game’s end, Barr had made 13 stops to keep the Rams scoreless, not including all the near-misses that Granby fired her way.
“The first half, we just came out slow, we weren’t going to the ball. We were just giving the ball away in certain instances. The second half, we really pressured. We moved without the ball. We were getting our chances, we just weren’t finishing,” Granby head coach Bob Weaver said. “The whole second half was in their end. They had a couple of runs at us, but that was it.”
“We talked about that at halftime. You give up a goal in the last few seconds, you’re gonna have a little bit of an attitude in the second half. They came out and really pushed us,” Miller said on Granby’s second half push. “I felt that we stayed strong and with our marks and just contesting everything.”
The Rams threw everything they had at the Eagles in the second half. Maggie Crawford and Ella Laliberte set up several good chances, but several of those opportunities went wide, sailing to the side of the next or rocketing over the crossbar. Especially later in the second half, Easthampton also made it impossible for the Rams to get any shots off. Though Granby had possession of the ball for minutes at a time, the Eagle’s rock-solid defense made it difficult to get a clear shot.
“Raegan (Deslisle) and Abby (McClaflin) in the middle just control the midfield, every ball is contested with them and they work well together,” Miller said. “But all in all, our defense – Veronica (Rapoza) in the back, and Des (Redfern) sweeping just didn’t really give them any great scoring opportunities.”
It felt like a win for both teams considering how Granby played in the latter half of the game, but the Rams don’t have much time to pat themselves on the back. Upcoming games against Northampton and Lenox mean that they’ll have to bring that same intensity to every game moving forward.
“Our league schedule is absolutely ridiculous – it’s challenging for them, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Weaver said. “Every game that we play is a challenge … we don’t have those lengths of ‘Oh, we can just half-effort.’”