Pats get back on track with shutout win over Broncos

Jacob Marrocco
Posted 9/17/15

The reigning Division II Champion Pilgrim girls’ soccer team is picking up right where it left off last season, and that includes having a Vieira that seems faster than the competition.

Freshman …

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Pats get back on track with shutout win over Broncos

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The reigning Division II Champion Pilgrim girls’ soccer team is picking up right where it left off last season, and that includes having a Vieira that seems faster than the competition.

Freshman Alexis Vieira, the little sister of three-time All-City Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year Katelyn Vieira, scored the game-winner in Pilgrim’s 2-0 blanking of Burrillville on Tuesday afternoon. The win moved the Pats to 3-1 after their first loss of the season to Coventry, 2-1, last Tuesday.

“[Alexis] has had a good example to watch,” Pilgrim head coach Tom Flanders said. “She’s a premier player. We are very lucky. I’m sure there are coaches in the state of Rhode Island that are reading ‘Vieira’ in the box scores and think that the sister’s still here, probably having nightmares going ‘I thought she was done.’ But [Alexis] has her own identity. She has her own way of playing. She has her own way of carrying herself.”

Senior captain Kendra Tantimonico put a shot off the right post 17 minutes in that drew Burrillville goalkeeper Nicole Ethier out of the net. The ball ricocheted out to Vieira in front and she knocked in the rebound for the game’s first score.

“She’s old for her age as far as soccer goes,” Flanders said of Vieira. “She’s got so many games under her belt, she has so much experience under her belt, so many training sessions under her belt. So she’s a seasoned veteran even at that freshman age. She’s dedicated her life to soccer, very similar to Katelyn.”

Despite the fact the Broncos outshot the Pats, Pilgrim registered more quality chances. Vieira later took on several defenders by herself, getting past most of them before sending a shot just over the goal. Tantimonico also just missed senior captain Molly Lynch on a pass next to the left goal post.

The Pilgrim defensive front stymied the Broncos all game, and star goalkeeper Hannah Page was there to gobble up any chance they had. Starters Emily Heon, Erin Plowman, Sophia DeLuca and Liz McGowan, as well as frequent substitute Jessica O’Leary, never wilted despite some second-half Burrillville charges. Flanders called his defense “The Ebenezer Scrooges of goals,” because it is “extremely stingy.”

“We pride ourselves on having a strong back-four,” Flanders said. “They take pride in the fact that they like to give Hannah shutouts. They like to protect her. We call it ‘Secret Service defense.’ And that’s really what they try to do all the time. All they do is wanna throw themselves in front of shots and limit the amount of shots on them.”

Plowman came up clutch for Pilgrim on the offensive end, too. As the Pats looked for insurance, Plowman placed a perfect clearance pass just above the heads of a couple Burrillville players just past midfield that rolled to a running Tantimonico. She had open field ahead of her and sailed a shot into the top left corner past Ethier to put Pilgrim on top 2-0.

“We do a lot of training sessions dedicated to things like that,” Flanders said of the goal and the accuracy of the pass. “Yeah, that’s a training ground goal.”

The Broncos and Pats exchanged chances for the rest of the game, but neither would score again. Burrillville’s Samantha England sent a shot wide left from the middle of the box, while later Vieira just missed on a laser from the left side of the goal.

The Broncos had another opportunity later when a shot from the left side of the net rolled just a few feet parallel to the goal line, but Page trailed it the entire way.

Page was administered a yellow card with about eight minutes to play. As the netminder reached down to collect a shot attempt in the box, a Bronco player came running into Page to get the ball and fell hard to the ground despite minimal contact. The referee booked Page for unsportsmanlike conduct.

The entire game had been physical, but Flanders said he and his team know that comes with the territory of being a state champion.

“I tell them all, ‘You won a Division II state title, so we get everybody’s best game and everybody wants a piece of you and everybody’s gonna come at you,’” Flanders said. “We got the bruises and the bumps and everything to prove it. I told them that at the beginning that it wasn’t gonna be easy. Winning a championship is tough, and to go after another one is even tougher because everybody knows you, you’re on everybody’s radar and that’s really what it’s about right now.”

Pilgrim will hit the road today as it travels to Division II-North Ponaganset for a matchup at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon. The Chieftains currently hold the north’s top spot at 3-2, despite allowing the most goals (15) of any team in their division.

Pilgrim’s busy schedule continues with D-II South’s Moses Brown (1-2) on Saturday and D-II North’s North Smithfield (2-1) on Monday.

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