Mount Greylock Girls Come Alive in Second Half, Move on to Next Round
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – For far too long in Sunday’s Division 5 State Tournament game against Carver, the Mount Greylock girls soccer team was looking at a tied score and the specter of a tie-breaker like the penalty kick shootout that ended the Mounties’ 2021 season in the same round of the post-season.
But senior co-captain Jane Skavlem assisted and scored goals six minutes apart midway through the second half to send Mount Greylock past Carver, 2-0, and into this week’s Sweet 16.
“I think we had a little bit of a letdown after the girls played out of their minds against Monson,” Mount Greylock coach Tom Ostheimer said of last week’s Western Mass championship game loss to the top ranked team in D5.
“We thought we had a couple of good practice sessions. But it took us a while to get untracked. We did not play our best game in the first half.”
Most of it anyway.
The Mounties took control of the match early with a couple of prime scoring chances.
In the second minute of play, senior co-captain Molly Sullivan ripped a shot from about 30 yards out in space that rang off the crossbar. A minute later, Nora Lopez had an opportunity deep on the right wing inside the 18 that hit the post.
After that, shots were few and far between for Mount Greylock despite keeping Carver in its half of the field the overwhelming majority of the half.
The Mounties dominated possession but could not find a connection in the final third and went into the break with just three shots on frame and nothing on the scoresheet.
“I thought the first give minutes, we dominated,” Ostheimer said. “We controlled play. And then we just sort of gradually let it slip away, to the point where we were not winning the 50/50 balls, not playing balls to feet. The little things, we just sort of forgot about that.
“Then it seemed like a switch went on.”
After a couple of near misses in the early stages of the second half, the Mounties got a shot on goal from Gigi Nicastro in the middle of the 18 that required a diving save by the keeper in the 53rd minute of play, the first of six second half on-target shots.
Three minutes later, Skavlemn sent a cross from the right wing through the middle of the 18 that Lucy Igoe one-timed into the goal to put Mount Greylock ahead, 1-0.
In the 62nd minute, it was Skavlem’s turn for a one-timer, knocking home a perfectly placed corner kick from Sullivan to double Mount Greylock’s lead.
“Getting a second goal was good,” Skavlem said. “It definitely makes it feel better than 1-0.”
Carver’s best chance to cut into that two-goal lead came in the 67th minute with a direct free kick from just outside the 18 on the right wing. Mounties keeper Mai O’Connor went to her right and leapt to knock the ball out of danger at the last moment for one of her two saves as she earned her 14th shutout of the season.
Eighth-seeded Mount Greylock (16-1-3) will be home in the Round of 16 against No. 9 Hull, which advanced on Sunday with a 4-2 win over Frontier.