Bradford, Vt.
The visitors curtailed their warmup routine as a result, but it didn’t stop them from jumping on the Olympians early en route to a 3-2 victory in a VPA Division III tournament opener.
“We’ve been a second-half team pretty much all season,” Windsor coach Jeff Bachey said. “But we played the first 10 minutes better than I’ve seen us play any 10 minutes throughout the entire season.”
No. 9 Windsor, which improved its record to 8-7 a year after finishing with just three wins, will visit No. 1 Green Mountain Union in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
The Yellowjackets’ turnaround has a lot to do with greater cohesion, according to junior Angel Sutton, who scored her team’s first goal against No. 8 Oxbow (8-7).
“I think it’s more on team bonding, but also skills,” Sutton said. “I think we really got together as a team and really started being good to each other. Compared to last year, we weren’t really that much as a team.”
Sutton’s high-arching goal five minutes into the contest was set up by Kristin Clark, who found the midfielder about 25 yards away from the goal. The perfectly placed chip shot sailed over the head of Oxbow goalie Mason Tomlinson (six saves).
The uncharacteristically early tally was key for Windsor, according to Bachey.
“I think getting that goal in that first 10 minutes was the difference maker for us,” he said. “It really helped carry our energy level throughout the game.”
Oxbow delivered the equalizer in the 28th minute when Chloe McIntire scored after her initial shot was deflected by Windsor goalie Hannah Kemp. The Yellowjacket keeper tried to close out McIntire as she had done brilliantly against Oxbow’s Emma Parkin earlier in the half. The save on Parkin was arguably the finest of her 11 on the afternoon.
Windsor’s Olivia Rockwood and Ava Sutton (10 goals apiece on the season) both found the back of the net late in the first half. Rockwood capitalized on a defensive miscue by Oxbow to score on a breakaway unassisted. Soon after, Clark found Ava Sutton (Angel’s twin) directly in front of the Olympian net.
Oxbow competed hard in the second stanza, adding eight shots to its total of 17. Zoe Barton assisted McIntire with nearly 16 minutes remaining after Kemp stopped a shot but couldn’t wrap up the save. McIntire’s second goal of the game made for a compelling home stretch, but the Olympians came up just short.
“They executed just a little better,” Oxbow coach Charlie Barton said. “Then we put (Windsor) on the heels, and we had a couple good opportunities; we just couldn’t finish them. There was no difference in teams, really; they executed just a little bit better than we did.”
Barton’s squad, which dealt with low numbers throughout the season, started out 2-5 before righting the ship.
“There’s stuff that’s come together that we can build on for next year,” Barton said. “We’ve got hopefully some good, strong players coming in to the system next year, and we’ve got everybody but one player coming back. So we have very high expectations for next year.”
As for the Yellowjackets, their balanced effort impressed Bachey, who took the head coaching job this season after leading the JV squad for two years.
“There isn’t a No. 1, there isn’t a No. 2 player; we’re good top to bottom,” Bachey said. “We have 20 girls rostered, and as I told them at halftime, I implicitly trust all 20 of them out there on the field at any position at any point in time. I think that’s been the biggest difference is that mentality of, ‘It takes a team to win these games,’ and they’re buying into it hook, line and sinker.”
Windsor is quite familiar with the Chieftains after previously losing to them in the regular season, 4-0 and 5-0.
“The more times you play a team, the harder it is to get to beat them,” Bachey said. “We’re hoping that analogy holds true for us as well and we can pull off a miracle and give them their first loss of the season.”