Sports: Montville girls end East Lyme’s 6-game unbeaten streak with 1-0 soccer win
Fresh off victory over NFA, Montville girls add win over Vikings
Montville — In case the Montville High School girls' soccer team didn't have the attention of its future opponents, it does now.
Coming off a 1-0 victory earlier in the week over Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I leader Norwich Free Academy, which was previously unbeaten, Montville followed that with another 1-0 victory Wednesday over defending ECC Division I and tournament champion East Lyme, ending a six-game unbeaten streak by the Vikings.
Montville, which plays in Division II, stunned East Lyme with a goal by Amanda Perkins two seconds before halftime and carried that momentum throughout the second half, spoiling a Herculean effort by East Lyme goalie Hayley Sorrentino (8 saves).
"At halftime, it was like, 'Let's hope these 30 minutes go by fast,'" said Perkins, the Indians' senior center back, who found herself wide open on the left wing with time running down. "It finally got down to five (minutes), then one and a half. They were flustered (after the goal)."
Perkins said she thought there was more time left in the half and was thinking of asking for a sub after her long scoring run. That caused a bit of anxiety for Montville coach Matt Beaupre, who was screaming urgently for Perkins to shoot the ball.
Perkins' goal, which found the far corner of the net, was assisted by Michaela MacCracken.
"I just saw the space and went to it," Perkins said. "I have confidence in my team to make the pass . ... I just finished. That was really Michaela MacCracken's work."
Montville (5-3) opened the season with a 1-0 nonconference loss to Weston and has Division II losses to Woodstock (3-0) and Bacon Academy (2-0).
East Lyme (5-3-1), mean-
while, started the season with backto-back losses to Old Lyme and NFA before powering through its next six games at 5-0-1, outscoring its opponents 24-2 during that span including a 3-0 defeat of Woodstock.
So what happened Wednesday wasn't necessarily what was expected.
"There's teams beating teams, like, 'How did they win?'" Beaupre said. "That happened after we beat Waterford and Waterford went and beat Woodstock. There's a lot of that thing going on. It shows this team can do it."
"Montville played a great game. They hustled and they beat us to balls. We didn't play well today and that happens in sports," East Lyme coach Rachel Redding said. "We'll go back to the drawing board and do some good stuff . ... (At halftime), you tell them, 'That's fine. You've got to fight back.' We didn't fight back hard enough."
East Lyme had shots by Karlie Rowe and Georgia Parsons hit the cross bar in the first half, but most of the pressure in the second half belonged to Montville's active forward line, which kept Sorrentino and sweeper Isabelle Riker frantically busy.
Montville goalie Lauren Ross also finished with eight saves, registering her third straight shutout.
"It's a big adrenaline rush," Perkins said of the week the Indians have had outside their division. "We worked so well together to put the ball in the back of the net. We want to continue that. It's a hard division (in Division II). But we know every game that we have next, we're going to go in 150 percent.
"Beating NFA gave us that high." v.fulkerson@theday.com