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09/16/2018 12:00 AMThe North Branford girls’ soccer team earned a pair of home victories in Shoreline Conference action last week to improve to 2-0-1 on the season. The Thunderbirds notched a 2-1 win over Haddam-Killingworth on Sept. 12 and then edged out Old Lyme by a 1-0 final on Sept. 15.
The Old Lyme game was a rematch of last year’s Shoreline Conference Tournament final, which saw North Branford claim a 2-1 victory to take the title.
“Walking into this, who knows how good we are? It’s an amazing test. [Old Lyme has] been the standard for as long as I’ve been here,” Head Coach Pat Kozloski said. “To put the pressure on our team to see where we are at, we’re able to see what we do well and what we need to work on. It’s one game. We have 13 more to play.”
After opening its season with a 1-1 draw against non-conference opponent East Haven, North Branford was looking to start off its Shoreline Conference schedule with a couple of wins last week. In the H-K game, senior captain Ana Pavic and junior Alexie Rosado both found the back of the net to lift the T-Birds to the victory. Rosado scored her goal off of a corner kick, before Pavic drilled home the second goal by converting a penalty kick.
Against Old Lyme, Rosado scored the only goal of the game on assist from Pavic as North Branford came away with the 1-0 win. Early in the second half, Rosado took a pass from Pavic down the right side of the field and, from a tight angle, put a shot on target that found its way past the Wildcats’ keeper.
Pavic is one of North Branford’s senior captains this season, joining Jessie Kilburn, Allie Augur, and Caitlin May in that role. May played goal in North Branford’s season-opening tie against East Haven. Augur was in net for both of the T-Birds’ victories last week, making 13 saves versus Old Lyme.
“We did what we wanted to do. We played it into our forwards. Ana and Lexi did a small combination play and we put the ball on net,” Coach Kozloski said. “When you do those things, good things happen.”
Still, Old Lyme maintained possession throughout a good portion of the game. Kozloski said the T-Birds gave away ball more than they would have liked, forcing their defense to do additional work.
“We just have to be a little bit wiser about it because, if we give the ball right up, then we have to defend more,” he said. “So, we need to pick our spots a little bit wiser, rather than giving the ball away too cheaply.
Kozloski said that North Branford is already making some tactical adjustments to improve in that area moving forward.
“It was just the way this game went. We’ve been working on some things, but I think the speed of this game just kind of caught up to us,” said Kozloski. “It’s not our intention to always play the ball over the top and run onto it.”
The Thunderbirds were outshot 13-7 by Old Lyme, but Augur turned aside all 13 of the Wildcats’ offerings to come away with the shutout. Kozloski said the North Branford’s defense was additionally bolstered by the play of Kilburn, senior Olivia Rodriguez, and sophomore Zoe Miller.
“Obviously, bringing back Allie is just immensely important. Also, bringing back Jessie, who is a tremendous athlete, we’re able to build around them,” he said. “Between Olivia and Zoe, they’ve really matured over the past 10 days, and it’s been awesome to see their defensive rotation.”
The win marked North Branford’s second victory against Old Lyme in as many attempts dating back to last season’s Shoreline Conference final. Prior to last year, Old Lyme had won four consecutive conference titles and was undefeated in conference play since October of 2014. However, even though his team enters this year as the reigning Shoreline champion, Kozloski said the T-Birds are focusing forward, instead of thinking about what they accomplished last season.
“I still don’t think we have the target on our back. We might. People might want to beat us, but we don’t really talk about it. I think it puts more pressure on the players,” Kozloski said. “We have to start from scratch. We can’t worry about last year. We’re going to build from here and just keep going.