After a flat beginning and a record of 0-4-0, Wayland girls were able to pick up their heads and pull forward. The comeback all started with a 0-0 tie against Concord Carlisle, a formidable team but definitely beatable. Wayland played strong throughout the entire game, and were able to hold CC on their own side for most of the game. After a loss to Westford Academy, we had our first home game in two weeks against Tyngsboro. The Wayland girls completely dominated the game, allowing only a few shots on their own net, but taking over 30 shots on Tyngsboro. With only about ten minutes left in the game, freshman Claire Nishioka scored, leading Wayland to get fired up and quickly score again, this time by senior captain Caroline Stack. It was an exciting first win!



The next game was very important, against one of Wayland’s biggest rivals, Lincoln-Sudbury. LS is second in the DCL, and played strong against AB (nationally ranked, first in DCL) to whom they had lost only 2-1. We all knew it was going to be a hard game, but the combination of our drive to win, our new warm up CD, and our home field helped us to play our absolute best. LS had about 17 shots on goal, and Wayland had a couple on LS. There was one particular corner kick played right in the middle of the LS goal where Wayland took a touch and possibly scored on the corner of the net where a defender was standing (behind the line) to kick out. Wayland girls played strong and came out of the game feeling great to see that the LS coach was not happy to tie to a team she had thought would be an easy win.

The most recent game was away against Boston Latin, where we played on the undersized Millennium field. Wayland came out flat, and then started to play at Boston Latin’s level, which is undoubtedly lower than ours. Sophomores Melanie Sperling (Sweeper) and Elizabeth Doyon (Keeper) stayed strong in back when the ball entered our 18 too many times. Towards the end of the first half, Tory Jones (junior) was played a ball to outside the 18 where she fired a shot right over the keeper’s gloves and into the back of the net to make the score 1-0. After half Wayland came out stronger and finished Boston Latin off with Elyse Ogletree dribbling into the corner of the 6, right through the goalie’s hands and into net, leaving the keeper behind on the ground and the final score 2-0.

In the past five games Wayland has earned a record of 2-1-2, a good change from the beginning of the season. The next game for Wayland is against Weston on Wednesday, October 10th at 4:00pm in the Wayland stadium. In their last game against Weston, Wayland lost 5-3 but is planning to bring more intensity and more shots to their next game. I hope to see everyone there to show their Wayland pride and cheer the girls to a win.