Soxie Crushes Deerfield 3-0
Coming off of ties with Northfield Mount Hermon and Kimball Union Academy, the Exeter girls’ varsity soccer team (nicknamed ‘Soxie’) was determined to come out with a win in their Family Weekend game against Deerfield Academy.
The team accomplished exactly what it set out for. Soxie showed up alert and remained driven for the whole game, dominating the field and finishing with a score of 3-0.
Upper Robin Potter and lowers Marymegan Wright and Allison Hanlon each scored a goal to put Big Red’s ahead.
Hanlon, who plays a center defense position, scored a spectacular goal. Senior and co-captain Ogechi Nwankwoala praised Hanlon’s efforts.“The highlight of the game for me was the goal from lower Allison Hanlon. She headed the ball off a corner kick through the goalies’ legs and into the goal. Before almost every game, I tell her to ‘meg the goalie,’ and she finally did…I am so proud,” she said.
Leading up to the game, Big Red worked on strengthening their offense by doing a lot of possession drills and two on two drills. The team also knew that the Deerfield game was going to be held in the stadium on turf at Exeter. With this knowledge, head coach Alexa Caldwell held practices on the stadium turf to try and got the players comfortable with the faster paced field surface leading up to the game last week.
Nwankwoala highlighted the team’s goal to emphasize the offense early on. “Our last couple of games, we’ve come back from being down, which is great and really exciting, but we shouldn’t always have to make a comeback,” she said. “We wanted to score early and be ahead against Deerfield.”
Wright echoed Nwankwoala’s sentiments and added, “We went into this game knowing that we needed to come out strong and not let up until the very end. Obviously, we all wanted to win for our parents, which helped motivate us even more.”
The team points its recent success to an improved team dynamic.“Our team is so supportive of each other,” lower Audrey Park said. “Drills are always competitive and fast-paced, but at the end of the practice we ‘get in touch’—we give each other a high five or a pat on the back to congratulate each other and become a united team again after scrimmaging each other.”
On the field, Big Red brings the intensity needed to prevail against tough teams, but the players remain supportive of one another. “Our team is really close. By this point, we’ve learned how to play with each other,” Wright said. “We’re also very supportive of each other. I know there are a number of times I’ve made mistakes and felt better when my team just told me to brush it off.”
The team has already improved considerably from last season but is looking to keep its momentum and win on the road against Groton. Wright commented on the level of competition in the league by saying, “Most of the teams in the league are pretty evenly matched. The outcome of the games really just depend on who really shows up that day and who wants to win the most.”
Park emphasized how close the competition is. “Almost all of the games in our league are determined by one goal. It’s highly competitive and hard to guess which team will win each match,” she said. “Exeter girls soccer will never win a game without being challenged and will never lose a game without challenging the other team.”