On Soccer
Matt Jenkins
QUINCY — One funny bounce brought tears for the Danvers girls soccer team.
A lofted ball to the center of the box skipped over Danvers goalie Ali Tivnan and found Cardinal Spellman's sophomore forward, Nicole Donovan, all alone in front of an empty net.
But Donovan's goal wasn't a game-winning, last-second tally. In fact, it didn't even happen in the second half.
But make no mistake about it, that goal — which came just about 30 seconds after Danvers had taken a lead on a goal from Corey Persson with less than two minutes to play in the first half — drastically altered the makeup of the Division 2 state semifinal, and ultimately ended the Falcons' season with a 2-1 loss at Veterans Stadium.
"That was tough. It gave them a lot of momentum," Danvers coach Jimmy Hinchion said. "To (be) up 1-0 going into half would have been awesome. When we went up I thought, 'OK, this is perfect.' And then, yeah ... that goal killed us."
The change in attitude and altered direction of the contest wasn't evident in the final moments of the first half — or even in the first few minutes of the second half. But soon enough, Cardinal Spellman started attacking as if Danvers was its wounded prey.
"To me that (goal) was huge, and I thought that took a little bit out of them," Spellman coach Mike Perry said. "You're in the huddle and now you're coming out (for the second half) with a different type of attitude."
Danvers, which had 17 shutouts this season, was in complete control in the first half. The Falcons may not have produced tons of great scoring opportunities before intermission, but they were putting plenty of shots on the Cardinals' net.
Danvers outshot Cardinal Spellman 11-1 in a first half that seemed to show the North champions' dominance. The Falcons looked faster, stronger and more skilled than their Southern counterparts, but the Cardinals seemed to have confidence on their side in the second stanza.
SDLqAll (Spellman's first-half goal) did was make it a brand new game in the second half," Hinchion said. "We fought hard the whole second half, but soccer is a game of opportunities. You might get a bunch and you might get very few, but if you don't capitalize on them it doesn't matter if you outplayed your opponent."
The opportunities started coming fast and furious for Spellman in the second half. Tivnan was forced to make several difficult saves, including a diving stop midway through the half. Spellman finally broke through, however, when Nicole McDonough got her head on a Caitlin Martell corner kick. McDonough's re-direction bounced off a Danvers defender before finding the net with 4:26 to play.
Shortly after the game had ended, Hinchion still couldn't find the answer for why his team couldn't produce more than one goal with all the opportunities they had.
"Maybe panic," Hinchion said. "We were just maybe trying too hard ... I'm not sure.
"Our one goal, we made it really look easy and we preached at halftime to use each other. Doing 2-v-1s (i.e., 2-on-1s) we can play so much better, but just for some reason we want to play right up the middle right into their strength."
The bright side for Danvers is that this loss can be used next year as motivation. The Falcons will return a tremendous core of players, with only seven graduating seniors.
It's going to take a long time for the Falcons to look past this loss, though. But even when they do, Hinchion will be there to remind them.
"I'm good at reminding them," Hinchion said. "Right now we need to take a little break, but we'll use this next year and we'll be back."
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Matt Jenkins is a staff writer at the Salem News. He can be reached by phone at 978-338-2648 or by e-mail at mjenkins@salemnews.com.
