QUINCY — It's not so much how many scoring chances you generate in a tightly-contested soccer game on a cold November night. It's what you do with those opportunities.
The Division 2 North champion Danvers High girls saw that first hand at Veterans Stadium last night, as Division 2 South champ Cardinal Spellman cashed in on its chances to score a 2-1 upset win in the state semifinals.
The Cardinals broke the Falcons' hearts with 4:26 left in regulation by scoring the game-winning goal. It was the only blemish of the season for Danvers, which finishes 19-1-3 with a state semifinal loss on this field for the second time in three seasons.
"Soccer can be a funny game. We thought this might be our year, but it'll have to come another time," said long-time Danvers coach Jimmy Hinchion.
The winner came when Spellman's Caitlin Martell sent a corner kick into the box and it was headed cleanly by Nicole McDonough. The ball took an odd bounce off the turf before getting by Falcon keeper Ali Tivnan.
"Especially if there's a bounce, if you don't clear a corner anything can happen," said Hinchion. "Soccer is a game of opportunities. You might get a bunch or you might get very few, but if you don't capitalize on them it doesn't matter. You leave it wide open for anything to happen."
The story for the Falcons was that they never truly got their speedy offense out of the starting blocks. A powerful Danvers offense would normally deliver a win if its defense allowed just two goals, but Cardinal Spellman had them scouted and left defenders back all night. Still, Danvers controlled possession and simply watched too many of its shots sail wide.
"Defensively, we did as good a job as we probably could have," said Spellman coach Mike Perry, his team now 20-2-1. "We wanted to keep them out of the middle and when they went there, we clogged it up. We have a lot of red shirts there because we knew we needed bodies when they came in with the ball."
Falcons' sophomore striker Corey Persson was measured and controlled when she got the ball in space and created multiple opportunities that went wide. She also had chances saved by Spellman freshman goalie Sarah Myers, who played the second half.
The Cardinals also had Danvers junior Brittany Russo tightly marked. She created chances with her speed despite the added defensive attention, but spent a good chunk of the second half at midfield as Danvers tried to jump start its offense.
"Eleven (Russo) and 17 (Persson) are both strong, aggressive and do all the little things. We didn't want them to beat us," said Perry, whose team will face Western Mass. champ Wahconah for the Division 2 state championship Saturday.
They nearly did. Persson got Danvers on the board with 2:00 to play in the first half when a touch pass by Becky Landers sprung her for a breakaway. Persson buried the shot to make it 1-0 and snap a 156-minute scoreless streak (Danvers beat Wayland in the North final on penalty kicks without scoring in regulation or OT).
"On the one goal, we made it look really easy," said Hinchion. "For some reason besides that, we wanted to try to go up the middle and right into their strength. That came back to bite us."
Spellman turned the tide by tying the game less than a minute later. Tivnan came out to play a high ball, but she couldn't collect it and it found the feet of Spellman's Nicole Donovan for the tying goal.
It was the first goal allowed in the postseason by the Falcons, who rolled through the Division 2 North tournament by outscoring its opponents, 16-0.
On the critical play, Danvers was missing stopper Kellie Macdonald, who was hurt late in the first half. She battled through and played a solid second half.
Locked in a 1-1 tie instead of trailing, Spellman entered the second half with a new fire. They limited Danvers' possession and scoring chances, and generated several of their own that were stuffed by Tivnan.
The Falcons generated some possession after falling behind, but never got a golden opportunity to knot it up and force overtime.
