I was away this past weekend when The Hill School came to Mercersburg on Saturday, October 13, during our Alumni Weekend.  I wanted to watch the women’s varsity soccer game, in part because all three team captains are students in my senior elective history course.  So I did the next best thing; I invited the captains over to talk about the exciting 1-0 win over our MAPL opponent, and to comment on the season as a whole.

Lauren Dobish (left), Rachel Greenberg (center) and Emily Carl (right), all seniors and all four-year varsity players, were chosen by their teammates to captain this year’s squad.  They are team players who are more comfortable talking about the accomplishments of others than about their own successes on the pitch.  Having lost by a wide margin to Hill last year, the captains were especially pleased to beat Hill at home, even by the razor-thin margin of 1-0.  Indeed, in the opening minute of play, a Hill player broke through the Storm defense and drilled the ball off the goalpost. 

But then things settled a bit and the Storm found its rhythm.  Jenn Dillon ’09 moved from her regular position of stopper to play sweeper for this game, and she took over as “the commander of the team,” according to the captains.  “Jenn did a great job of directing the other players and keeping the field spread.”  Both Storm goalies were dealing with injuries yet they (first Riley Renner ’09 and then Rachael Porter ’09) managed to split the net keeping responsibilities.

Fifteen minutes into the opening half, Dobish, who plays center midfield, fed a thread of a ball past two Hill defenders where left forward Trisha Bassi ’10 took the ball and sent what at first looked like a cross over the outstretched hands of the Hill keeper and into the upper-right corner of the net.  And that was the only time the ball felt the shade of a goal in this match.

“In the first half we were very strong,” the captains noted.  “We saw the field really well on Saturday.”  Crisp passing, clear communication and good positioning defined the Storm’s play in that half, but in the second half the captains felt that the Storm played a bit too defensively.  “Our communication was not quite as good and Hill starting taking a bunch of shots, not all of them quality shots, but still we lost our offensive mindset.”

The Storm held on, though, and played solidly enough to beat a good Hill team and to improve their own record to 5-3-4 with four games remaining on the schedule.

“We’ve had a bunch of ties that should have been wins,” the captains agreed, “but all in all, this continues to be a very good season.”  When I asked why this year had a better feel to it, the captains noted that “we get along better as a team and we have been much more balanced this year.  We don’t rely on certain players like we did in past years.  We do a better job of setting each other up, playing smart ball, and creating opportunities for other teammates.  The emphasis this year is much bigger than the play of any one or two individuals.”  And that team orientation has had a sanguine affect on their outlook at this point in the season. “We feel really optimistic about the rest of the season.  There’s no burnout factor right now; we want to keep playing and keep improving each game.”    

The captains went on to tell me how several players have really “stepped it up.”  High on that list is Virginia native Paige Harry ’10, who usually plays sweeper, Oregon’s Alicia Furnary ’09 at defense, and right forward Tatiana Duchak ’10, who has engineered some key corner and goal kicks.  When it finally came time to talk about the play of these three senior captains, Carl and Greenberg jumped in first and told me that “Dobish pretty much has been the deciding factor in a few of our games.  She tied up the Martinsburg game in the last 30 seconds, and then against McConnellsburg she scored a key goal in a weather-shortened game to prevent a loss.”  “It’s just luck,” Dobish quickly replied. 

Carl and Dobish noted that during the Hill game, “Greenberg had quite a few defensive plays in which she came from the far side to track down and stop potentially dangerous plays.  Hill would get a lot of through balls, but Rachel would manage to get over there and cut the ball off before a shot was popped off.”  Then Dobish and Greenberg added that “Carl is the go-to person whenever we need a position filled.  She goes anywhere and will play any position.”  During the Hill game, “Emily won most if not all of the 50-50 balls that came her way, and when we needed her to come back to defense, she did it.”  But the captains were quick to remind me that this year the team is much more balanced and “it’s not about any one individual.”

 “Sad.”  That’s the word all three captains said in unison when asked about the possibility of this being their last year of competitive school soccer.  But, they added, if they don’t go on to play college ball, all three agreed that this is a good way to end their careers.

 --by Phil Kantaros