By Josh Staloch
Correspondent
SUAMICO – The Notre Dame Academy girls’ soccer team remained unbeaten following a 4-1 Fox River Classic Conference victory May 18 over Bay Port.
“I’ve been in the program for 13 years now, and we’ve never had a team that could attack the net like this group,” said Notre Dame head coach Nick Browne. “They’re vicious, and it’s good to see. And defensively, especially against a good team like Bay Port, we try to play sound defense and not take a lot of chances in the back. They did a great job of that tonight.”
It didn’t take the Tritons long to get on the scoreboard.
After the team established possession early, Mia Lemkuil broke away from the Bay Port defense and made the most of the opportunity by finding teammate Georgia Gregoire with a pass.
Gregoire took the ball in stride and put it past the Pirates keeper for the first score of the contest in the fifth minute.
As textbook as the first goal was, the team’s next two scores were even better.
With 38 minutes played and the score still 1-0, Tritons’ midfielder Sarah Hardwick took a free-kick from the left side of the goal and lofted it over the Bay Port keeper and into the back corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.
Four minutes later, Hardwick did it again from the same spot on a free-kick, sending the ball to the same corner as she had minutes earlier, putting the Tritons up 3-0 heading into halftime.
Bay Port took to the field in the second half with a renewed sense of urgency.
The Pirates controlled the ball and put pressure on the Notre Dame defense.
Bay Port put together a solid attempt when Lauren Bradley advanced the ball upfield, finding Callie Kositzke in stride, who dumped it off to Mallory Herber in the middle for a shot.
The play, which began developing at midfield, was barely off, though, and the Pirates weren’t able to turn the good-looking breakaway into a score.
Shortly after, a Notre Dame corner kick by Lucy Quidzinski resulted in a 4-0 lead for the Tritons after the ball was knocked around in front of the goal long enough for Claire Noble to get a foot on it for a score.
Bay Port’s efforts paid off late when Olivia Wahl got the ball to Brooke Steffen with a pass across to the middle.
Steffen one-timed it past the Notre Dame goalie to complete the highlight-reel play and bring the score to 4-1 with time winding down.