Wildcats ride the Green Wave to win on Senior Night

After honoring its 12 seniors in a pregame ceremony, the Bethel High girls soccer team went and played one of their strongest games of the season to earn a 3-1 win over visiting New Milford. The Wildcats (4-4-3) scored twice early in the first half to jump out to an early lead before adding another goal late in the second half to ice the game.

"It's probably the best game we played all season," Coach Jayme McGovern said. "In part I think it's because of senior night. We have 12 seniors and I think that everybody gets hyped up and is ready to play, there's a lot of energy. We just came out hard and scoring two goals quickly it put us on top and gave us a lot of confidence."

From the onset the Wildcats controlled pla, and scored their first goal just a few minutes into the game when Nicola Gallagher found an open Georgia Ferguson in front of the net. A few minutes later, Gallagher got a goal of her own when she broke past the New Milford defense and beat the goalie from the top of the penalty box.

"Nicola had a great game," McGovern said. "She's coming off a pretty bad quad injury, so it has taken her a few games to kind of get into the rhythm of things. I think tonight you saw her at her best. She's probably one of the most unselfish players, and she showed it on the first goal when she took the ball deep into the corner and let Georgia have it, it's just a testament to her character."

Thanks to a healthy Gallagher, and the ten other seniors out there, the Wildcats quickly separated themselves from New Milford.

"It was nice too, because we had 11 of our 12 seniors out there," McGovern said. "Some of them are not starters and don't usually see a lot of game time, so I think it was really encouraging for them to get two goals so quickly. I think it set the pace and the tone for the whole game."

After falling behind early, New Milford responded with a goal of their own midway through the first half, when their corner kick caught the inside of the far post and bounced in.

With their lead cut to one, the Wildcats defense responded by not allowing New Milford to generate anything else offensively. They consistently won the battles for loose balls, and once they had the ball they made smart decisions with it. 

While it was certainly a team effort, a lot of the credit belongs to their sweeper Bridget Conway, who served as the team's last line of defense.

"She was so nervous coming into this game," McGovern said. "Sam broke her wrist yesterday in practice, so Bridget had to shift over into a new position, she probably had the game of her life tonight. Not much gets by her, and she was just really strong for us back there."

Thanks to Conway, and the rest of the Wildcats defense, goalie Katie Malatesinic only needed to make four saves to come away with the win.

Even with their defense holding strong, the game was still up for grabs until Gallagher once again setup a Wildcats' goal, this time she found Elisa Navarro with just a few minutes left to give the team that elusive third goal.

The Wildcats next game is Thursday at home against Brookfield, at 6 p.m.  On Saturday they will host Oxford at 3 p.m.