Rye High Girls’ Soccer
Garnets Flummox Brewster, Advance to Quarterfinals
By Rye Record staff
“It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but we’ll take it,” said Head Coach Rich Savage, as the clock wound down and his team shut out Brewster 6-0 in the first round of playoffs.
Although Rye missed a few early point-blank chances and seemed to show a little rust from the week-long layoff by virtue of earning a bye as the number one seed, this match was never really in doubt. Rye outmatched Brewster in every aspect of the game.
Less than eight minutes into the game, Meredith Tutun took advantage of some intense and extended offensive possession and buried her first goal of the game into the lower left corner of the net. This was just the start of an offensive barrage.
Over the next several minutes, Rye controlled and distributed the ball at midfield with increasing smoothness and began to put extended pressure on Brewster’s defensive line. At midway through the first half, Katie Sack found a streaking Tutun on a sneaky through ball which split Brewster’s defensive line, allowing Tutun to score her second goal of the match. Ten minutes later, Tutun was the beneficiary of a nifty Mia McGinty through ball which she collected, broke free through the defense, and scored, putting the Garnets up 3-0.
If Brewster made adjustments in the second half, they weren’t effective. A solid Rye team gained more confidence as the game went on and seemed to win every one-on-one battle, possessing the ball at will.
Led by stalwart backstops Eve Dalton and Reilly Traynor and ace keeper Olivia Dabinett, Rye’s defense limited their opponent to just two shots for the entire game.
By the middle of the second half, Claudia Rafa scored two goals within two minutes of one another with her patented “break on through to the other side” approach. Less than five minutes later, Maddy Childs would calmly sneak by the defense and put one behind the beleaguered Brewster keeper.
The victory puts Rye’s season record at 16-1.
In the quarterfinals, Garnets host Nanuet, which trounced Harrison 3-1, on their home turf October 28. Coach Savage said, “We must continue to improve, take care of business, and do our thing.”
