Tough start to girls soccer season for talented team

by John Osborn · Friday, September 20, 2024

It’s been a tough start to the season for the 2024 girls soccer squad.

After beating Oakmont 3-1 in the team’s first Midland-Wachusett C League game this fall, the girls battled Tahanto to a 1-1 tie, and then lost to Littleton 6-0, Tyngsborough 6-1, and Maynard 2-1.

Samantha Prouty stops one of many shots in a game against Tyngsborough, Sept. 12. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Coach Evan Woodworth, a teacher at Hildreth Elementary School, is new this year. The team is led by senior co-captains Caroline Ells, Nina Iverson, and Tilly Fitzgibbons. With seven seniors and nine juniors on its roster and junior Samantha Prouty tending goal for a third year, the team has the experience it needs to improve as the season unfolds.

Defense has been a weakness for the girls; opposing teams have scored 21 goals against the Trojans, the most given up thus far by any Mid-Wach C team.

In their Sept. 12 game against league leader Tyngsborough, for example, the girls maintained possession for much of the game but were unable to score until its final minutes, when junior Darragh O’Connor popped a rebound past the Tigers’ goalie on one of Bromfield’s three corner kicks. Tigers players scored six times: once on a corner kick, once on a penalty kick, and four times on speedy counterattacks led or assisted by Tyngsborough senior Riley Mitza.

Tyngsborough’s head coach, John Dormer, had praise for Bromfield. “They’re going to be a really good team later this year or next,” he said. “He [Woodworth] is a great coach.”

Woodworth was upbeat after the Tyngsborough game. “As a new coach and only five games into the season, I think [team] culture takes a while to build but is building quicker than I had hoped. We’re going to ride it into the next few games.”

With a 1-4-1 record as of Sept. 18, the Trojans were in sixth place in the seven-member Mid-Wach C League. Their next scheduled game was against North Middlesex Regional, at home.