Once again, Lady Devils eliminated by Lynchburg

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

It has been a different season to say the least for Coach Morgan Hendrickson and her North Adams Lady Devils soccer squad. Different because the win total wasn’t the normal North Adams girls win total and different because the roster was made of mostly underclassmen who had to “learn on the job.”

One thing about this season was similar to many in the past though. When the Lady Devils appear in the district tournament, so do the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs, and usually their paths do cross and they crossed again last week. After the Lady Devils topped Northwest 4-2 in the Division V district quarterfinals, their reward was yet another postseason match up with the Lady Mustangs. In their regular season meeting, Lynchburg blanked the Lady Devils 5-0 but North Adams coach Morgan Hendrickson felt sure that her team would put up a much better effort this time around.

Hendrickson was correct. In a physical back-and-forth contest, the Lady Devils stayed right in the mix but once again were plagued by the bug that had bitten them all season, the inability to put the ball in the back of the net. The Lady Mustangs managed to do that twice, once in each half, and once again they eliminated North Adams with a 2-0 victory.

“It really does seem to be Lynchburg in the districts every year,” said Coach Hendrickson. “Overall, I couldn’t be more proud of the way my girls played. We have battled a lot of challenges and I always told them I wanted them to be playing their best soccer at the end of the season, and that’s exactly what they did. They followed the game plan that we had and unfortunately it just didn’t fall in our favor, but they played a great game. [Lynchburg coach Dennis] West even said so himself, which is a great compliment.”

“We knew this would be a rebuild year, and it was, I feel like we genuinely rebuilt some of what we needed to. Losing only two seniors helps tremendously in knowing I have other girls coming back that are continuing to build skills and looking to replace what we lost. They’ve all stepped up tremendously. Losing 5-0 the first time we played Lynchburg to just a 2-0 loss was a totally different team. I honestly couldn’t be more proud of this group of young women.”

The two seniors that Hendrickson mentioned are Raylan Eldridge and Tatum Grooms, both valuable contributors to the 2024 squad.

“Raylan and Tatum are hard ones to lose,” Hendrickson said. “They’ve played four years together and it has always only been those two from their class. Raylan is small, I don’t know that she’s grown much since freshman year when it comes to height, but she sure has grown in skill. She has done literally anything I’ve ever asked of her. From her freshman year I’ve told her to mark some of the best forwards in our division, often times in the state, and she’s done a tremendous job at it. Someone has big shoes to fill when it comes to Ray. Tatum, of course, is the same way. She’s been the dominating force that this team has needed for years. She and Raylan both have sacrificed their bodies numerous times. Tatum is our last line of defense, and I know if it were me, I would hate to see her coming at me. She always used to say that soccer was more of her sister’s sport, but I don’t think she realizes that it’s her sport too. Both girls overcame a lot, they were used to the team being one of the strongest in the division from the start of their careers, they both handled this season with so much grace and determination. They taught the underclassmen just as much as I did. Both are going to be hard to replace, I’m honored to have coached them for four years.”

The Lady Devils finished the 2024 campaign with an overall record of 4-11-3 while the Lady Mustangs moved on to defeat Fairfield in the district finals, their sixth consecutive Cornette-Tong district championship and their 11th in the past 12 seasons.