John Carroll’s girls soccer team has quietly ascended in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference in recent years without quite earning consistent outside respect as a legitimate contender.
Wednesday against top-ranked Archbishop Spalding, the Patriots made a loud-and-clear statement with their biggest step forward yet.
Ella Steck’s unassisted strike in the 77th minute lifted No. 8 John Carroll to a 2-1 win over the host Cavaliers and pushed the Patriots to the top of the IAAM A Conference table.
Steck, a senior, won a ball at midfield and dribbled down the right sideline, cut back inside and curled a shot off her left foot.
“I was just dribbling, and I wasn’t going to shoot it, I was going to pass it,” said Steck. “They just left me open, so I went for it.”
Her bending shot to the far post beat the dive of Spalding’s goalkeeper, and the Patriots (6-1-1 overall, 2-0-1 IAAM A) leapfrogged the previously unbeaten Cavs in a head-to-head match-up critical for postseason seeding position.
The Patriots did it on the backs of their eight seniors.
“It feels amazing,” said Steck. “This being our team and we’re leading it, it feels great to be going out and doing well.”
They needed to do well against a vaunted Spalding team with its own battery of prolific goal-scorers, and it was the Patriots who opened the scoring on Wednesday. After earning a corner kick on 20 minutes, senior Megann Kalthof played a short give-and-go with Steck before Kalthof sent a left-footed cross through the box. Her pass bounded past everyone and fell on the far side to sophomore Addy Carter, who one-timed John Carroll’s first shot of the game firmly inside the far post for a 1-0 lead.
Spalding (6-1-1, 1-1-0 IAAM A) responded almost immediately. Senior Sophie Thibeault deftly corralled a throw-in by Riley Wills and sent a middle-bound cross to Gabby Wisbeck, who side-footed a low shot neatly into the net for a 1-1 tie.
Out of halftime, Spalding pressed higher up the field and demanded 35 minutes of answers from John Carroll’s backs, who repeatedly stepped up for clean tackles and doggedly cleared the Cavaliers’ advances. Thibeault, Wisbeck and Wills peppered shots on Patriot goalkeeper Anna Garvey, who made seven saves.
John Carroll senior center back Lauren Bullock anchored her line and transitioned out to senior center midfielder Elise Robinson as the Patriots never panicked and scanned for opportunities to counter.
“I’m just so proud of our team and the way we handled such a big game like this, to stay calm and finish it out with a huge win,” said Robinson.
“It’s awesome, it’s pretty big for us,” said Bullock. “I mean, we’ve worked hard to get here all this season, but we’re still getting better.”
Steck’s game-winner was her second in less than a week; she had the overtime score that gave John Carroll a 1-0 win over St. Paul’s last week.
Kalthof, the team’s leading scorer with six goals, spoke of her team’s determination to pull out Wednesday’s win and keep the Patriots unbeaten in league play at 2-0-1; John Carroll tied reigning conference champion McDonogh, 2-2, in late September.
“We all just wanted it so bad that we weren’t going to let each other down,” said Kalthof. “We were picking each other up. Everybody wanted it so bad that you could see it. I’m very proud of us.”
John Carroll coach Hayley Howe noted her team’s elite conditioning coming into the season and a blossoming team chemistry as key to their early success.
She said Wednesday’s win is an inflection point on a larger arc that points toward a deep playoff run.
“For us this season, it’s just proving to us that we’re right there,” said Howe. “In the past, we’ve always been kind of towards the bottom of the A Conference, and I don’t think we gained the respect that I feel the team deserves day-in, day-out. So it’s little things like keeping our head down, working hard, focusing on our game, not paying attention too much to distractions, and I think coming out here and getting a win on the road against, what a quality side, it really means a lot…For us the mentality is, we’re crescendoing. There is no plateau. What can we do a little bit better, every game? We learn from the last game, and we keep building.”
Spalding coach Ashly Kennedy credited John Carroll’s opportunism and said there are lessons to learn from Wednesday.
“I think [John Carroll] executed, they capitalized on our mistakes, they found their player that changed the game for them,” Kennedy said. “When you hit adversity, there’s always an opportunity to grow. For us this is an opportunity to grow. How do we respond to losses is going to be most important. [We will] reflect on what this feeling means, and that conference games are important, and it’s also about [playoff] seeding. So, we’ve got to follow through and take care of what we need to in conference.”
NO. 8 JOHN CARROLL 2, NO. 1 SPALDING 1
John Carroll 1 1 - 2
Spalding 1 0 - 1
Goals: John Carroll - Addy Carter, Ella Steck; Spalding - Gabbi Wisbeck
Assists: John Carroll - Megann Kalthof; Spalding - Sophie Thibeault
Saves: John Carroll - Anna Garvey 7; Spalding - Maeve Konstantoulas 3
