Every October for seemingly forever, Rye’s girls soccer teams find themselves in about the same place: playing their best soccer of the year with the playoffs right around the corner.
With an unbeaten record (9-0-3) entering the final weeks of the season, coach Rich Savage feels his team is trending in a positive direction.
“The Albertus Magnus game last weekend was a good win for our team,” Savage said of Saturday’s 3-1 victory. “They were ranked No. 3 in the country, but somehow we were able to throw them off their normal rhythm a bit. They have five seniors on that team who are all Division 1 commits, and a bunch of other really strong players.”
Freshman Harkin Brown scored Rye’s first two goals off assists by junior Julia Carballo and sophomore Ryann O’Donnell. Junior Charlotte Keenan scored to make it 3-0 before Albertus Magnus pulled one back in the final minutes.
“(Senior goalie) Tessa Labovitz made an all-world save right before the end of the first half,” Savage said. “If that shot goes in, the whole game changes. In that game, we learned that we belong on the field with teams like that.”
Tuesday night, Rye avenged one of its three ties this season, picking up a dominant 3-0 victory at home against Harrison. Sophomore Hannah Jachman got the scoring started for Rye with 13:58 remaining in the 1st half off of a left-swinging corner kick from Brown.
Minutes later, it was senior Parker Calhoun’s turn to nudge Rye ahead 2-0. And just before halftime, senior Clare Nemsick scored after the Harrison goalie misplayed the ball right in front of the net. That was all the scoring Rye needed to keep their unbeaten streak alive.
“We try to maintain our composure throughout each game,” Savage said. “We feel that we can slow the game down a bit with our ball skills, and tire other teams out as they start to get frustrated and chase. I think that was the situation with Harrison in the second half tonight. We’re playing well right now, we’re trusting each other. The other thing is that we’re just about at full strength health-wise. We haven’t played our best soccer yet, but we’re close.”
After recording yet another shutout, Labovitz agrees.
“We’re feeling pretty good as a team lately,” the senior captain said. “We have a ton of positive momentum going right now. We had a little lull in the beginning, but I really feel we’re becoming the best team we can be at a really important stage of our season.”
Rye’s next game is against Ursuline at 7 p.m. under the Friday night lights at Nugent Stadium.
