Another successful season continued on Tuesday, Sept. 22 for Coach Dave D’Avignon and his North Adams Lady Devils soccer squad as they hosted the Fayetteville Lady Rockets and came away with their sixth Southern Hills Athletic Conference win of the year, scoring two goals in the final four minutes to top the Lady Rockets 3-1.
The statistics of the game would lead one to believe that the score was a lopsided one as the Lady Devils out shot their opponent 37-12, but statistics can be misleading as the Fayetteville girls hung right in there and kept the game deadlocked for 76 minutes of play.
The hard-fought win kept the North Adams girls undefeated at home at 7-0 and stretched their current winning streak to six games.
“Our girls played hard and deserved the win, but we’re not there yet,” said Coach D’Avignon. “We have some things to work on. Still my hat’s off to the girls for applying pressure for the entire game. When you play enough minutes in front of the other teams’ goal, good things will eventually happen.”
The two teams played scoreless in the first half until the 4:17 mark, when the Lady Devils’ Allison Harper scored an unassisted goal, taking a long, arching shot from near mid field that managed to somehow sneak past the Fayetteville goalkeeper on the short bounce. The first half ended with North Adams holding that slim 1-0 lead.
Early in the second half, the Lady Rockets forged a tie when Kelly Johnson found a loose ball about 10 yards out and her shot just got past diving North Adams goalie Madee Shipley.
The score remained at 1-1 until there was just 3:59 left in the game. On a corner kick, Harper perfectly placed the ball in the mouth of the Fayetteville goal where Kitasha Mesmer was waiting for the one-touch and the go-ahead goal. One minute and 53 second later, the Lady Devils added an insurance goal when Cati Butler made a nice pass from the center of the field to Lakyn Hupp on the left side. Hupp took it straight to the goal and pounded it home to seal the deal in the 3-1 victory.
The win improved North Adams to 7-1-1 on the season, 6-1 in the SHAC. The Lady Devils were back in action on Sept. 24 with a non-conference road trip to Minford.
