Newport
Pickman, who finished with eight saves, certainly didn’t do all the work by herself as she had defensive help from Cara Bartlett, Morgan Flinkstrom, Kirsten Westerberger and Rachel Swindell as the Cougars picked up their second win in five games.
“We played well today because we’ve been working hard at it,” Kearsarge coach Dianne Chadwick said. “What happened here today was not just luck. We’ve been working to get better.”
While the final score indicates a romp for the Cougars, the game never really got away from the Tigers (1-4) until the closing moments. The third Kearsarge goal came as the final horn sounded. Still, it was kind of frustrating for Newport coach Becky Merrow, who watched her team have a large territorial edge in the first half, but came away with nothing as Pickman kicked out six shots and her defense cleared the rebounds.
The second half, however, is what bothered Merrow the most as she thought her defense could have been better.
“I know their goalie made some great saves in the first half, but it’s always about finishing and we didn’t finish,” she said. “Then our defense was erratic in the second half.”
Newport has only two seniors on a roster full of freshmen and sophomores, but for the first 30 minutes the Tigers were the dominant team. They had nine corners and six shots on goal, but when the halftime horn sounded, they were trailing, 1-0.
Pickman was especially tough on the Tigers’ Lacey McNeel, who had two shots from in close that Pickman tracked down and stopped with a flash of her leg. Pickman was also fortunate a couple of times as her kickouts were cleared before any Newport player could slap in a rebound.
Kearsarge, which had a solid game-opening spurt, immediately put pressure on Newport keeper Katy Jurado and eventually got one by her, as senior Vica Henskens scored with the assist going to classmate Devi Kraushaar, also a senior with less than five minutes gone.
But for the next 20 minutes or so, the Tigers were able to keep the ball in the attacking zone. Time and again, the ball was within five yards or so of Pickman, but the Tigers were unable to find a hole or the right combination to get one past her.
Newport junior Kendall Hamilton, who had a strong game at midfield, tried a different route as she lofted a short shot that seemed to bother Pickman, but at the last second she spotted it and swatted it away.
The mood and the flow of the game changed in the second half as the Cougars started to regain control of the field after an early strong rush by McNeel and Megan Howard resulted in a Howard shot that whistled just wide.
From this point, the complexion of the game changed as Kearsarge got on the offensive. The Newport defense, which had been strong up to that point, was getting beat as the Cougars, with some slick passing, swarmed around Jurado and eventually got the second goal, with Eleni Siuliotis doing the honors at the 18:26 mark.
There was a lot of midfield play from the time the second goal was made until just before the final horn sounded, with Kaushner getting credit for a tally that the officials said went in just ahead of the horn.
Both teams are on the road Friday with Newport going to Stevens and Kearsarge heading for Hopkinton.