Nashua, n.h.
Thompson’s 30-yard bomb in the third minute of the second half did a lot for the Oyster River High girls soccer team on Thursday night. Ultimately, it gave the fifth-seeded Bobcats a 1-0 NHIAA Division II semifinal win over two-time defending champion Hanover at Stellos Stadium.
It also gave Oyster River reason to take a deep breath. The eighth-seeded Marauders (13-5-1) may have provided the on-field opposition, but the Bobcats’ bigger chore might have been persuading themselves of being able to put Hanover down for the count.
“We’ve lost to Hanover two years in a row on penalty kicks,” Oyster River coach Steve Pettit said. “The biggest thing for us was to get over the emotional boundary of being able to beat Hanover. You can get blocked in those moments when you’ve lost on PKs to the same team two years in a row, so finding some way to overcome that mentality is the biggest thing that happened tonight.”
The match required such a moment to produce such an outcome.
Two squads with superb defenses — Hanover had allowed only nine goals on the campaign with 11 shutouts entering the night, Oyster River 16 with 10 clean sheets — gave away little to the opposing offenses. Marauder goalkeeper Mahler Meyerrose and Bobcat counterpart Susan McDonough spent more time trying to stay warm than running around patrolling their respective penalty areas.
Hanover did threaten McDonough twice in the final five minutes, but not enough to keep its D-II reign going for at least one more day.
“It just seemed tonight that perhaps we were just a little off on our passing game,” Hanover coach Doug Kennedy said. “Passes weren’t connecting the way they typically do. I thought we came out a little slow. We picked up toward the end of the second half. I was feeling pretty good. I thought we were possessing pretty well.”
But the goal never came.
Hanover entered the season fairly sure of two things: Offense would be a work in progress, but defense would be a foundation. So it was against the Bobcats (15-3-1).
Marauder center backs Mindy Wu and JJ Taube teamed with wing defenders Clare Gardner and Maddie Lyons to keep Meyerrose free of activity through the match’s first 40 minutes. If Oyster River still harbored doubts of its capabilities — concerns that may have cropped up if the Bobcats had bothered to recall a 3-0 loss in Hanover to open the season in August — it showed over a first half in which they didn’t send a shot toward Meyerrose.
“It was exceptionally difficult,” Pettit said. “Coming into this game, I confess that I’d already prepared what I was going to say if we’d lost. Not because I expected us to lose, but because I was so pleased that we were playing Hanover.
“We’ve had a lot of games this year that have had some very questionable tactics and questionable approaches to playing us. They play the game properly. They’re really well-coached. They’re a great team. They’re genuinely a nice bunch of people. So I was at peace with the fact that if we lose to that team, I’ll be comfortable.”
Thompson did her part to make Hanover uncomfortable.
The match’s only goal came out of literally nothing. An innocent clearance of a Bobcat ball into the Hanover box landed at Thompson’s right foot. After a quick settle, the sophomore blasted a 30-yard dart at 42:49 that Meyerrose (two saves) never had a chance to stop.
“She is a great striker of the ball,” Pettit said, “as you saw in that moment.”
Desperation brought the best out of Hanover in the final five minutes.
Meyerrose kept the Marauders in the match with a sliding save of Oyster River striker Devan McClain, gobbling up a 16-yard roller at the end of a 74th-minute counterattack. Hanover methodically worked the ball to the other end of the field, with Cate Wagner forcing a juggling stop from McDonough (four saves).
The Marauders’ Amelia Lubrano and Carly Craft tried to work some late magic in the 77th, but Craft’s long-distance bid curled wide of the right post. McDonough added one more stop in the final minute on a 12-yard Lubrano volley following a Gardner corner kick, one of just three on the night for the Marauders.
“I would never come into a season (thinking), ‘Of course, we’re going to win again,’ ” Kennedy said. “To win two in a row is awesome. I would have said early on we can get pretty far, but there are other good teams out there that can beat us.”
The one that ultimately did had to overcome itself first before it could overcome the champs.
Free Kicks: No. 3 John Stark nipped No. 2 Bow, 2-1, in double overtime in the evening’s opening contest. … The Bobcats have recorded three straight shutouts in the state tournament. … Oyster River brought a sizeable student section, many of whose male members chose to cheer shirtless. … Halftime entertainment included such ’80s hip-hop staples as Young MC’s Bust a Move and Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock’s It Takes Two. Cue the turntables. … Only Wu will return to the Marauders next fall from this season’s starting defense. Meyerrose, Lyons, Taube, Gardner, Lubrano, Sylvie Alexander, Anna Dickson and Ruby Spitz also played their last Hanover soccer matches.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.