Wahconah Girls Roll at Drury
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Brooke Harrington had a hat trick Thursday to lead the Wahconah girls soccer team to a 3-0 win over Drury and its 10th win of the season.
Wahconah completed a season sweep of the Blue Devils and ran its record to 4-0-1 since taking its only loss of the season back on Sept. 27 against unbeaten Mount Greylock.
Not a bad numbers for any team. Remarkable for a program that went 3-14-1 last year and did not score a goal until Oct. 18 in 2024.
“We feel more together as a team,” said Harrington, a sophomore who played on the varsity last fall. “We feel we can have each other’s backs, and we help each other out instead of just yelling at each other.”
With four games left in the regular season, Wahconah has helped itself to No. 15 ranking statewide in Division 4 and the No. 6 seed in Western Massachusetts Class B.
On Thursday, Gianna Heilbroun helped Harrington give Wahconah a 1-0 lead in the 10th minute of play.
Heilbroun sent a cross from deep on the right wing into the 18, where Harrington finished for her 11th goal this fall.
Wahconah continued to keep the pressure on throughout the first half after that, but Drury keeper Addisyn Shepard turned aside nine first-half shots on her way to a 16-save performance.
At the other end, Wahconah did a good job of limiting Drury’s opportunities to get forward. But in the 16th minute, Ella Bond had a good opportunity up the middle on a through ball from Megan McGrath that forced Wahconah keeper Paetyn Tatro (three saves) to come off her line and take the ball away at the top of the 18.
A few minutes later, Drury generated its first shot on goal of the first half when Wahconah was whistled for a foul about 45 yards from the goal. McGrath’s direct free kick was on target, but Tatro was there to make the stop.
In the 19th minute, the Blue Devils’ best scoring opportunity came off a corner kick, when McGrath’s on-target header in the penalty area was headed out of the goal mouth by Wahconah defender Madison McCarthy.
After half-time, Wahconah had an early scoring chance when a Harrington shot from the top of the 18 went off the crossbar.
The 49-minute gap between Wahconah’s first and second goals did start to frustrate the offense a little, Harrington said.
“I think we just lost possession,” Wahconah coach Maggie Rivers said of the scoring lull. “We just kind of were trying to play the easy ball through instead of trying to possess and move the ball around and get [the defense] moving, too.”
A Wahconah team that now has 38 goals in 12 games found its scoring touch midway through the second half.
First, a misplayed ball in the 18 allowed Harrington to get possession behind Tatro, the keeper, and make it 2-0 with 21 minutes, 27 seconds left to play.
Two minutes later, Chloe DiFazio set up Harrington for her third goal, allowing Rivers to start getting her reserves some playing time and her starters some rest for a busy stretch run.
Including Thursday, Wahconah (10-1-1) has five games in eight days to finish the regular season.
On Saturday, Rivers’ team goes to Agawam before facing the top two teams in Western Mass Class C next week: Monson for a holiday matinee at noon and a rematch under the lights with the Mounties two days later.
“We’ve got a little bit of momentum,” Rivers said. “This is a good time of year to have it. So we feel good about it. We feel good about the shutouts. It’s the first time Drury’s been shut out, so it’s really good for us.”
Drury (4-8-1) is home against Chicopee on Saturday.