Cane aiming to lead Hopewell’s title defense
If the Hopewell Valley girls soccer team is going to successfully defend the Mercer County Tournament championship, Julie Cane needs to have a big week.
That’s not some kind breaking news alert.
Cane has been putting up numbers on the varsity level for three seasons now, so she’s not fazed by being the focal point of the Bulldogs’ attack.
“Every year you have to take on a different role,” Cane said. “This year it happened to be I needed to take on a more offensive role. That’s something that as an offensive forward, I want to do. It’s not necessarily a new thing for me.”
The senior midfielder is two assists away from a third straight season with doublefigure goals and assists. She enters Thursday night’s firstround clash against Ewing with a Colonial Valley Conference-best 16 goals to go with eight assists.
“She’s better (as an attacking midfielder) for us,” coach John McGinley said. “Sometimes because we have some kids banged up, we’re trying to figure out the best lineup. We’re playing to try and get better for the counties and states, so we tinkered a little bit, but we moved her back up to where she’s best for us.”
Cane has registered 46 goals and 39 assists in her career. She tallied 14 goals in each of the last two seasons, contributing to 42 victories over that span.
Hopewell graduated a large portion of the talent from those teams, meaning Cane was left as the primary goal-getter and leader of this group.
McGinley, for his part, has stressed patience as new of younger players learn their roles and older players adjust to bigger ones. The fifthseeded Bulldogs are 9-6-2 overall, but have gone 5-2-2 since a 4-0 setback on Sept. 26 against Steinert.
“If you look at our starting lineup, we really only have two players who have never seen the field,” said Cane, a University of New Hampshire commit. “It’s really nothing to be impatient about. The girls are willing to work and I’m willing to work with you. We’re a team, we’re a family, so we work together.” that could present a problem for third-seeded Steinert (131-1), which has unloaded for at least four goals in seven of its last nine games.
The seventh-seeded Little Tigers (8-4-2) are 6-1-1 in their last eight and have two of the top midfielders (Devon Lis and Colette Marciano) in the county.