Undefeated Broncos top Mounties
Lapierre scores twice in D-II home victory
BURRILLVILLE – Several minutes after Burrillville High had secured a crucial 4-2 Division II triumph over Mount St. Charles at Thomas E. Gledhill Memorial Field on Tuesday afternoon, BHS head coach Perry Cala admitted he finally could breathe again.
“At halftime, we were only up, 2-1, so I asked my girls if anyone knew where the defibrillator was located; I said, ‘Man, my chest!’” he said, apparently half-joking and half-serious. “I know I asked one of them if they could call 9-1-1. I was nervous because it seemed like we were playing with more skill and had better passing and ball control, but Mount was keeping pace.
“When it came down to capitalizing on that really good passing, we weren’t getting it done,” he added. “We had numerous chances, but missed on a lot of them.”
Courtesy of senior quad-captain Grace Lapierre’s two goals and junior Victoria Patriarca’s pair of assists, the Broncos not only remained perfect at 11-0-0, but also held onto the top spot in Division II.
Other key tallies were registered by senior forward Morgan Morse and junior midfielder Jocelyn Valliere, while classmate and netminder Nicole Ethier stonewalled MSC with 11 saves.
The Mounties fell to 7-2-1 in league action (8-2-2 overall), despite goals by juniors Renee Jacques and Lucy Baxter. Fellow classmate Morgan Hancock closed with 18 stops.
“It was a great game, no doubt,” stated MSC mentor Marek Wolny after the defeat. “They just capitalized on our mistakes. I thought we had more mistakes on combination plays and poor coverage in front of the net. Burrillville did what it was supposed to do – take advantage of our mental or physical errors.”
The Mount nevertheless needed just 4:10 after the opening pass to claim the 1-0 cushion when Jacques knocked home a feed from sophomore Kaitlyn D’Abrosca. Burrillville knotted the score exactly 6:58 later after Morse converted as assist from senior midfielder Sam England.
Less than 13 minutes later, it appeared senior Caroline Adler would regain the lead for the Mounties after whistling a 22-yard free kick from the right at the crossbar, though Ethier made a leaping save.
Only 7:04 remained on the scoreboard clock before the break when the Broncos notched their second – and it came in fabulous form; that’s when Valliere collected a loose ball deep down the right sideline and somehow hammered it past Hancock and inside the left post for the 2-1 lead.
“That was absolutely incredible,” Cala noted, shaking his head in disbelief. “She had no angle on it, and I still don’t know if she was trying to cross it or shoot. That was the highlight play of the game right there, but that’s what I was talking about.
“We had better opportunities from much better angles, more direct spots on the field, and that goes in? It was impossible, but she made it happen.”
A mere 49 ticks into the final session, it looked as if BHS would snag the 3-1 cushion when junior Caysie Gautreau beat a defender while racing down the right side and sent a low try that eluded Hancock, but the ball coasted just outside the left post.
Not quite four minutes after, Gautreau unleashed another attempt from nearly the same position, but that suffered the same fate. On the play, she went down after a defender mistakenly struck her, and England and fellow quad-captain Caitlin Libby had to carry her off the turf with what seemed to be a lower back injury.
“Caysie told me that she had a broken back when she was little, and I think it became aggravated,” Cala said. “She had to sit down the rest of the game, so we want to get her back as quickly as we can.”
With 10:02 elapsed in the second half, Adler hunted down a loose ball high in the box and smoked a shot at Ethier, yet the latter earned a stellar crouching stop by the right post. And, six minutes later, officials awarded Baxter a 22yard direct kick from the left, though Ethier slapped away the hard liner.
At the 59:42 mark, Patriarca sent a pretty crossing pass from the right at Lapierre, and she chipped it past a diving Hancock to extend the advantage to 3-1. With 14:45 left in regulation (65:15), the two hooked up again on a similar play. Patriarca fed it in from the right, but this time Hancock came out of the goalie box to knife the angle, but Lapierre toed it by a defender and chipped it in for the 4-1 cushion.
Exactly 41 seconds after, Baxter converted a pass from Adler to beat Ethier and pull the Mount to within two, but couldn’t fashion many chances after that.
When asked about the Lapierre-Patriarca connection, Cala stated, “That’s just teamwork. It’s not just between those two kids. The last game we played, against Moses Brown, there was the same kind of chemistry between Victoria and Caysie. Whenever two or three players get some solid passing going, good things are going to happen. It’s just chemistry, but all the girls have it.
“I think a lot of our success stems from the team’s passion; they come excited to every practice, every game,” he continued. “They’re happy because they’re winning, but also very determined. We do a lot of passing drills, and the girls are getting better at them.
“My formula for this group is I want to make sure every player knows that they deserve to play and belong on the field. We’re very deep, so when someone comes out, I know I can replace her with another of the same caliber, or really close to it. When Caysie went down, we put in another girl who plays strong, fast and with skill. That’s what, I believe, wears down an opponent.”