NORTHAMPTON – Problems that plagued the Northampton girls soccer team all season morphed to solutions against Lenox on Thursday.
The Blue Devils are accustomed to creating chances, but finishing them has not come so easily. They wasted little in the first 15 minutes against the Millionaires, generating four corner kicks and scoring twice en route to a 4-0 victory.
“We’ve been working in practice about being dangerous and dynamic all across the field from everyone,” Northampton coach Vanessa Butynski said. “This is what we’ve been working toward. We did a fantastic job of finishing. It’s fantastic. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Northampton set a season-high with four goals. The first came in the opening two minutes. Chloe Denhart picked out a charging Allie Sullivan, and the freshman calmly poked it into the back of the net just 1 minute, 43 seconds in.
“It’s very helpful when it goes in so early so you have the energy to keep going,” said Sullivan, a freshman. “It’s also hard for the other team to get back after you start rolling early.”
The Blue Devils (6-4, 5-3 Central) kept rolling. Carolynn Skubiszewski lofted a corner toward the box in the 16th minute, and Denhart rose above the mass of bodies to connect with the header. It hit the six-yard box and dribbled over the corner of the net. The Lenox keeper waved her arms like it was headed wide, but it settled across the goal line in the side netting.
“I thought I got like a solid piece of it,” Denhart said. “But it also like ricocheted. So that helped.”
Northampton struck again as the halftime whistle approached. Skubiszewski lofted a central ball that Eleanor Lewis rose to meet. She connected with a crane kick that sent the ball into Lenox’s net in the first half’s final five minutes and gave the Blue Devils a 3-0 lead.
“We’re playing as a team, and that’s kind of a big highlight,” Butynski said. “They applied pressure beautifully. They were pinching and covering each other. Then when they won the ball, they were connecting and possessing. When we possess, we’re at our best.”
Lenox grabbed its first share of real possession after halftime. The Millionaires earned their first corner kick in the 48th minute and forced Northampton keeper Immani Power-Greene into quick-twitch saves. She kept out all five shots she faced to earn the clean sheet. She owes Leah Greene a hat tip after she cleared a ball off the line following a save in the 49th minute.
The Millionaires didn’t offer much threatening in open play after that. They threatened from a few free kicks late after the outcome was all but decided, but the Blue Devils turned away all chances.
They also put their collective foots down with a reprise insurance goal in the 53rd minute. Denhart worked the ball into the box and found a streaking Sullivan for her second goal of the evening. She only had two goals the entire season before Friday.
“Allie’s got a lot of speed, so I can really trust her to run the end line every time and play it back through,” Denhart said.
The victory was Northampton’s third in a row with the postseason appearing on the horizon.
“We’ve been a little bit had a lot of highs and a lot of lows. We’ve been trying to be a little bit more consistent, and that game was a beautiful picture of it,” Butynski said.
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.