PANTHERS
Zadeh and Lia Willis each scored within the last 1:10 of the half, but Patuxent was able to keep the hosts at bay through the second half, never allowing North Point to pull closer than four.
It was a positive start for the Panthers in the eyes of head coach Kayla Hayden, specifically because of all of the new pieces on the field for her team and the lack of game situations the team
had experienced up until Wednesday night.
“Overall, I’m very pleased with how they played,” she said. “We only had got one scrimmage in, because of the weather and some confusion we didn’t get another one in. So this is only the second game they’ve played and I was very pleased. We have five freshmen on the team, so we have some young girls. It was great for them to step up today, as well. The older girls did exactly what I asked from them and helped lead the team to our victory today.”
The Panthers had a healthy mix of scorers in the game, as seven different players tallied at least one goal. Stewart led the way with her five goals, while Kayleigh Murphy registered a hat trick and Fort scored twice. Anderson, McGuigan, Kenna Tejchman and Macie Unkle each scored once.
“I think it went really well for our first game,” Stewart said. “We have a lot of new people, so we were trying to make sure we had our flow and we definitely got it.”
Two players accounted for
all of North Point’s scoring, with Zadeh scoring a gamehigh six goals and Willis adding three of her own. The Eagles, a young team in their own right, opened the season with a 7-6 loss to Chopticon and was next scheduled to play at Lackey on Thursday night.
“We have a very young team, only have four girls returning from varsity last year,” North Point head coach Paige Attonito said. “Considering how young we are and how little experience we have, I am happy with how we’ve been doing. Obviously we’re not getting the wins we would like, but we’re playing well, we’re playing together and every day we’re learning. We’re getting better, which is all you can really ask for with such a young team.”
Two games into the season, Attonito was cautiously optimistic about what was ahead for her squad.
“i’d like to see a game with our full roster,” she said. “Our last game we had one starter who was not there. Tonight we had one starter out hurt. I think if we’re all playing, we’re capable of great things.”
On the other side, Stewart felt there was reason to feel positive about what was ahead for the Panthers, as well.
“I just think we have to improve on little aspects,” she said. “We did good things, we did bad things on defense, transitioning and attack. We just have to clean it up and I think if we do that we’ll be able to go far.”
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