By Avonlea Cummings
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
Taking the field with a four-game winning streak, the Westwood Wolverines embarked on a journey to the home turf of the Medfield Warriors on Tuesday, October 17, for their second opportunity to compete in the TVL match this season. The girls seized numerous scoring opportunities, but Medfield's tenacious defense thwarted the Wolverines' attempts, resulting in a scoreless night. Medfield took the lead and concluded the evening with a resounding 4-0 victory.
As both teams stepped onto the turf, it was evident that the crowd was in for an exhilarating soccer match. High intensity emanated from both sides of the field as they battled to preserve their winning streaks. The Westwood Wolverines adopted a defensive stance that made it challenging for the Warriors, who relentlessly sought to breach Westwood's formidable defenses.
In response to Medfield's offensive pressure, Westwood's formation required their wings to drop back and support the defense. Despite the extra running involved, the Wolverines efficiently transitioned up and down the field, always ready to receive leading passes from their teammates.
Head coach Seth Lucash offered his insights on the Wolverines' impressive performance on that Tuesday evening.
“I think we did a good job moving the ball up the middle through our midfield, it’s been something we’ve been working on, so I think we did good with that at times. I really like how our wingers went all the way back to play defense but still were able to get back up offensively to give us options and opportunities to get the ball toward the goal. Overall, I think our possession was pretty good tonight… I think Medfield is very talented on offense and they send a lot of players up on the offensive end, so our challenge this game was communication on who is marking who, and moving throughout the field, they had many midfielders moving the ball side to side down the field, so it was definitely a challenge to switch off of them and communicate with our teammates, I think that’s what hurt us in the end,” said Lucash.
Despite Medfield’s strong skills, the Wolverines did not back down from their competition, they took chances on multiple scoring opportunities throughout the game and held an all-team effort that limited Medfield’s offense. Lucash made note of some key players he thought did very well in the match.
“I think Isabelle Hanson our striker did an awesome job in the game despite getting tightly defended on the field by Medfield, I think Madisyn Travers who plays one of our center-mids controlling and possessing the ball, Mackenzie Kaiser who’s one of our wings, her getting back on defense was great, and Hannah Calawa, did great possessing the ball when we had it and creating those chances. I don’t think the score reflects sort of how we feel like we did but we had some challenges. This is just a bad game in a string of really great games for us and we need to get back to winning,” reflected Lucash.
Westwood will continue their season by hosting the Norwood Mustangs on Thursday, October 26 at 6 p.m.
