Columbia Girls Defeated; Coach Moves On

The Columbia girls soccer season came to an end on Friday at Dozier Field against top-seeded Watchung Hills. The eighth-seeded Cougars gave up four goals in the first half and another four in the second half, losing 8-0 in the second round of the North II Group 4 state sectional playoffs.

"I was very surprised; we should never concede eight goals," said Columbia head coach Stephen Jones. "We worked on a system to defend, we knew they had some good players."

The Warriors got three goals and three assists from senior Daphne Corboz and had scores from five other girls en route to their second consecutive 8-0 shutout during this postseason.

Watchung Hills dominated the bulk of the possession and seemed to be able to advance into Columbia's half of the field at will. Corboz and many of her teammates forced the Cougars into one-on-one match-ups, which is not the strength of Columbia's defense.

"What we allowed them to do is isolate us one-on-one, and the girl was just too good to just have one defender and we didn't cover for each other," Jones said. "They had a good day, we had a bad day and they'll have a very tough game in the next round against Westfield."

After the game, coach Jones dropped a bit of a bombshell on his Cougar team, telling them that he would probably not be back next season. After helping to change the culture of Columbia soccer over the last two seasons, Jones said that he feels the team is in a good position to take the next step forward.

"[The season] is a success because the girls have helped change the culture. All I do is try to plan for the games," Jones said. "The plan was always for me to be a short-term stopgap kind of thing. When the last coach left, there was nobody there."

Columbia ends its season with an 11-5-1 record and with another momentum building season, while returning a slew of starters next season.

"I think the program is in a good place now," Jones said. "It's a good time for me to leave. If I were to hang around, I might leave them with not that many good players. There's a good group of seniors coming back next season."