The Rye girls soccer team is no stranger to the pressure-cooker of the playoffs. As the two-time defending Section 1 Class A champs, Rye is built for the postseason.
After a 4-0 win against Irvington in the first round Saturday, senior captain Parker Calhoun believes her squad is up to the challenge.
“At the start of every single game the entire team puts their hands in and we break on one word ‘Together,’” Calhoun said. “We love each other and we play for each other. All season long, we’ve been telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter who we play, those other teams all have to play Rye.”
That camaraderie was evident against a valiant Irvington squad. The 14th-seeded Bulldogs chose a calculated strategy against the No. 3 seed Garnets: they played most of the game with 10 defenders in their half of the field. In soccer parlance, it’s called “parking the bus,” meaning you clog up the area in front of the goal to make it difficult for the opponent to create much offense. It’s not the most offensively dynamic strategy, but it can be effective.
Irvington’s traffic jam nearly worked in the first half, as Rye’s lone goal was from an early, stress-relieving penalty kick converted by sophomore Hannah Jachman. Clinging to that one-goal lead at the start of the second half, Rye finally broke through with its second goal, from senior Clare Nemsick, with 18 minutes remaining.
Then an excellent low strike from senior captain Sam Yeh made it 3-0 Rye. And a Jachman header on a beautiful cross from junior Shira Rand ended the scoring at 4-0 with just under 11 minutes to play.
“We weren’t surprised by Irvington’s strategy of putting so many players in the box,” said Rye coach Rich Savage, “but they stayed in that shape for most of the game, so we had to adjust a bit at halftime, which we did. Every moment of every game counts now. You win, you move on.”
Rye (14-0-3) will host the winner of No. 6 Pearl River (11-4-1) and No. 11 Eastchester (5-5-6) in the section quarterfinals at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Nugent Stadium.
