Girls’ Varsity Soccer maintains first place

By Meghan Foley
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter

On Thursday night, girls varsity soccer took on Braintree on the Memorial Field turf. The Rockets have had a very successful season this year, entering this game with a 12–2–1 record and first place in the Division 1 ranking. They played Braintree (7–3–5) back in September, beating them 1–0 and were favored to win again.

Despite this, the ball was in Needham’s end more than it was in Braintree’s during the first half. There weren’t many shots, though the Rockets did fire off a good one on net in the final ten minutes, which was saved by Braintree goalie Liv Whelan.

Beginning with a score of 0–0, the second half was when things picked up. Over the course of the game, both sides steadily became more physical. The climax of this came when two players were chasing down a ball into Braintree’s goalie box and both went down.

This happened after the Rockets scored their first goal with just over ten minutes left in the game: Sophomore forward Syd Kalaw placed a corner kick to the Rockets’ offense in front of the net, which was headed by senior defender Chelsea Heeger, and seemed to have been put away by junior midfielder Emery Carr, though it was difficult to tell in the fray.

In the final five minutes, the Rockets earned a second goal when midfielder and captain Hannah Levine took a shot that got just by Whelan.

A Braintree defender was able to clear a ball near the net in the last minute of the game and held the Rockets at 2–0, though the girls still maintained their winning streak at the end of this game. The girls played their final two regular season games on Monday, October 27 versus Walpole and on Wednesday, October 29 versus Concord-Carlisle.