Girls' soccer: Lincoln Academy pours it on against Leavitt

Leavitt goalie Shelby Varney makes a diving save after blocking a shot by Lincoln Academy’s Tatum Hancock during Thursday’s game in Turner. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

TURNER — Goals were hard to come by for Lincoln Academy through its first two games. The Eagles’ offense finally took off in the third game against Leavitt on Thursday.

Tatum Hancock scored four goals to pace the Eagles in a 7-3 victory over the Hornets in a KVAC Class B South girls’ soccer clash.

“They just had that one girl in the middle,” Leavitt senior defender Annika Mitchell said of Hancock.

The Eagles’ (1-2) slow start to the season lasted through the first part of the first half Thursday, until Hancock took a loose ball in the Hornets’ (1-2) box and blasted it in to tie the game 1-1 just over 18 minutes in.

“I mean, at first I think I we were still on the bus, and we talked about how when we usually come up here we never play well to start up here,” Lincoln coach Donovan York said. “Once that first goal went in, I think it kind of woke us up a little bit.”

Leavitt got off to the better start in the game. Leah Maheux scored just more than two minutes in, and the Hornets had a few other shots on goal against Lincoln goalie Schuyler Farrell, who kept her team in it until the offense came around.

“That’s been our goal going into every game, getting first goal. And I think it felt good. We had the intensity of getting that,” Mitchell said. “So it gave us some boost, but then we kind of lost in once they got a goal.”

Elizabeth Ober gave the Eagles the lead 23:24 into the game off an Eleanor Mathews corner kick. Hancock made it 3-1 late in the first half by scoring on her own rebound of a penalty kick that Leavitt goalkeeper Shelby Varney had initially saved.

“We were very frustrated (at halftime),” Mitchell said. “But we were going to go out there, give it all we got, and that’s what we did, but just wasn’t sort of enough for it. We didn’t play it the whole, entire 40 minutes.”

Emily Swan cut the deficit to 3-2 by finishing from Maheux just over three minutes into the second half, but Hancock scored her third and fourth goals 28 seconds apart around the 10-minute mark to pull Lincoln Academy even farther away.

“She had speed, and just footwork,” Mitchell said.

“She’d been doubly marked the first two games, and today she was marked fairly tight, but we moved her also to the outside, to hopefully free her up a little bit,” York said.

Chelsea Williams looped a 30-plus-yard free kick over Varney and into the back of the net, and Mathews notched her third assist with a re-direct to Madi Bradbury for a goal to round out the scoring for the Eagles, who scored seven goals after combining for just one in the first two games.

“I just think our talent started to show through. I mean, we’ve had a lid on the goal the first two games. We just hadn’t really been able to put anything in,” York said.

Maheux scored her second goal on a feed from McKenna Redstone with less than seven minutes to play, and the Hornets peppered Farrell with three shots in the final two minutes, but to no avail.

“We played like our team,” Mitchell said. “Yeah, it felt good, playing like a team like that. And, I mean, if we played like that the whole time we would have probably got way more goals.”

Farrell, a senior who came off the bench to make her first start of the season, made 14 saves, including on a Maheux penalty kick in the second half. Varney stopped six shots for the Hornets.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

Action from Thursday’s girls soccer match between Lincoln Academy and Leavitt in Turner. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Leavitt goalie Shelby Varney makes a diving save off the shot of Lincoln Academy’s Tatum Hancock during Thursday’s game in Turner. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Leavitt’s Jenna Boucher left, clears the ball up the line as Lincoln Academy’s Ellie Mathews tries to muscle her way to the ball during Thursday’s game in Turner. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Leavitt’s Carlie Leavitt tries to steal the ball from Lincoln Academy’s Chelsea Williams, left and Grace Houghton during Thursday’s game in Turner. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)