The best, most riveting games often come down to the wire, and that just happened to be the Ewing High School girls’ soccer team’s hallmark this year.
While the squad’s season ended with a 3-1 loss to Bordentown in the first round of the Central Jersey Group II tournament on Nov. 4 — bringing the Blue Devils’ final record to 8-7-2, their first time above the .500 mark in seven years — the girls made a habit of scoring last-minute goals or winning in overtime.
Head coach Mike Reynolds said it’s just the way they operate, crediting speed, fitness and talent with the team’s ability “to find a way to make something happen.”
“When it did come down to the last 10 minutes in those tight games, we’d have talent to put on the field,” he said. “We were in shape to do that. Certainly, for the most part, being the faster team in terms of foot speed contributed, along with the progression that they went through from day one to now as far as playing the ball to each other and trying to possess it a little bit.”
Senior Kelsey Basich agreed, adding that while the team is able to work together and deliver quick, accurate passes even in the direst situations, it’s the intangibles that really sets them apart during a game’s waning minutes.
“I think we just get it in our heads that we finally need to put it all together and make something happen, and I think every one of these girls on the field has the heart to do so,” she said. “It’s always the second half that is our better half. We just turn it on from there.”
Reynolds cited the Oct. 23 match against Princeton, a 3-2 win in the first round of the Mercer County Tournament as one of the best examples of the team coming back.
Their roles were reversed earlier in the season, when Princeton won by the same score on Sept. 19—after Ewing scored two goals in the second half, nearly tying the game.
This time, though, after squandering a two-goal lead in the second half, Ewing pulled it together and scored a third goal in overtime, sealing the win and advancing the squad to the quarterfinals, where they lost 7-0 to Pennington, the eventual tournament winner.
“Beating Princeton in the county tournament was definitely a highlight,” Reynolds said. “We had to find a way to get that one last goal, and we did. That was a big game.
“We had a number of games like that, where it was coming down to the last 10 minutes, or we’re in overtime and it’s tied. They had to find a way to make it work, and they were able to do it on a number of occasions.”
Basich added that a well-attended, narrow 1-0 defeat of 12-8 rival Notre Dame on Oct. 18 was also a highlight.
“We always have a lot of energy,” said senior Kendal Parah. “I don’t know what triggers it, but in the second half and at the end of the game, we just get there. We can finish.”
And it all starts in practices, she noted, where the girls are vocal, active and playing like it’s a championship game.
“Practice is always really energized,” Parah said. “This obviously transitions into the game. We always try to be really energized and worked up, even the game before. We put it in our heads that we’re going to go out and give it all we have. It transitions well.”
Parah and Basich are just a couple of the reasons behind the team’s scrappiness this year, though like Nicolette Towlen, who led the team in goals with 12, Jules Murrill and Claire Ehret also contributed. In goal, Coutney Bartkowski was a force, Reynolds said.
“She has been really good in goal,” he said. “She’s made some great saves. Beyond that, there’s still plenty of kids that are making contributions, whether it’s being in a good defensive position and playing hard, or scoring. It’s certainly not all about scoring goals.”
But Reynolds and his staff anticipated lots of contributions from lots of players.
“We watch pretty carefully year to year,” he said. “We kind of have an idea of who is capable of what things, and we try to put them in the best position possible to do those things. I think we do a pretty good job of that, and I think the kids are pretty understanding when we tell them, ‘We expect such and such out of you.’”
Though the season came to an abrupt, frustrating end in the Bordentown game, it was a good year for the girls, said Reynolds.
“In the games that we played really well, we put all of those physical talents in play, but we also moved the ball to each other and played as a unit instead of just three or four people playing as individuals,” he said.
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