EASTHAMPTON – With less than five minutes remaining in Wednesday’s game between the Easthampton and Amherst girls soccer teams, a draw seemed destined.
As the seconds ticked away, Amherst fired a shot at keeper Addie Barr, who came far out of her net to make the initial stop. The rebound bounced over to Amherst eighth grader Maeve Fitzgerald on the right side, and she had a clear shot if she could make it around Barr racing back to the net.
Fitzgerald dribbled the ball to find a better angle and fired it home to give the ‘Canes the ultimate game-winning goal in a dramatic 3-2 victory at Nonotuck Park, snapping Easthampton’s five-game win streak.
It was a real team win for Amherst (5-2-1), which tested Barr consistently throughout the matchup and relied on each other to secure the victory.
“I think this team is really supportive and then you feel everyone else around you supporting you,” Fitzgerald said. “You want to rise up and do really good.”
The two teams played a back-and-forth game, with the Eagles striking first in the 32nd minute. Midfielder Raegan Delisle struck with a perfectly-placed ball that arced over Amherst keeper Neena Chinappa to get the hosts on the board.
A few minutes earlier, Easthampton came within inches of scoring first when a ball hit the post. Though Amherst drove most of the play in the first half, it was the Eagles that found the back of the net first to take a 1-0 lead.
“We were figuring stuff out because we changed a little bit – we were going to man mark (Madeline Hockman), so people were a little bit not 100 percent sure what they were doing because we haven’t worked on it a lot. But I think…we figured it out, and Raegan Delisle in the middle was doing a great job winning balls for us,” Easthampton head coach Brian Miller said. “It isn’t our normal style, usually we like to possess a little bit more.”
In addition to Delisle’s impressive play in the midfield, Barr was lights out in goal for the Eagles, finishing the game with 22 saves and keeping Easthampton in the contest early. She kept the Hurricanes off the board entirely in the first half, sending her team into halftime with the 1-0 advantage.
“She does a great job. We’ve convinced her to play up higher, because now we’re playing with the flat four. So there’s more space for those through balls, so she has to be more alert and up,” Miller said. “She’s done a great job of coming off her line and cutting down those through balls.”
Amherst managed to tie the game 1-1 when Hockman caught Barr too far out of her net, getting a pass from Zola Higham and firing the ball into an empty net. Easthampton went ahead again a few minutes later off a header from Delisle on a corner kick, assisted by Samone Young, but the duo of Hockman and Higham teamed up again to tie the game less than two minutes after Easthampton’s go-ahead goal.
“Me and Maddie have been playing together for a while and we both know how each other play really well,” Higham said. “I know where to send it and she knows where to run, so we have good chemistry.”
After Fitzgerald’s late goal to make it 3-2, Easthampton (5-2) called a timeout with just over three minutes on the clock. Both teams were in desperation mode, and Amherst coach Don Fraser challenged his team to play hard to close the game, telling everyone that “this is the three minutes that makes champions.”
The Hurricanes managed to stave off Easthampton’s late push, though the home team came close to getting a third goal several times in the second half, most notably an early shot from Ana Growhowski that went just wide.
Now on a three-game winning streak, Amherst will look to extend that in its next match against Chicopee on Friday at 4:15 p.m. Easthampton will try to get back to its winning ways against Hopkins Academy on Saturday at 10 a.m.
Hannah Bevis can be reached at hbevis@gazettenet.com. Follow her on Twitter @Hannah_Bevis1.