Having already lost two Division 2 South battles before the postseason had even started, the Dedham High girls soccer team wasn’t about to make it a third.
Sophomore Jenna Savi had two goals and an assist, including the game-winner in the 51st minute, as the No. 6 Marauders opened the tournament with a 3-2 first-round win over No. 11 Sandwich.
“Sandwich is a good team, they were the champs of (the Atlantic Coast League),” said Dedham coach Don Savi. “We knew what we were in for. It’s a good win when you beat a team like that.”
Dedham, now 16-2-1, advances into the quarterfinals to take on No. 3 Canton, a 4-1 first round winner over Foxboro, Wednesday night (6 p.m.) at Canton High.
The Marauders fell into a difficult draw when they were denied an appeal of their seeding, feeling that No. 4 Old Rochester should have to count a rescheduled game after the cutoff time as a loss and not as a no contest, which would have put Dedham into a three-way coin flip for the fourth, fifth and sixth spots.
When Dedham learned that its potential quarterfinal opponents were not playing until Monday, it requested its Saturday assignment be moved back to Monday as well in order to give an illness-ravaged squad a few extra recovery days, but was rebuffed again.
The Marauders put those disappointments behind them and turned their focus on a young, but dangerous, Blue Knights team recently moved down from Division 1.
Dedham sprung on them early, scoring just 5:21 in. Savi drilled a corner kick into the box and freshman Kayla Sharpe redirected it in for her first varsity goal and a 1-0 Dedham lead.
But Sandwich answered less than three minutes later when Liz Manganella’s chip was mishandled by Dedham goalie Cara Corcoran and Molly Morris was there to pounce on the loose ball and touch it, tying the game at 7:51.
The Marauders found themselves trailing with a little over 15 minutes to play in the first half when Theresa Wojnar ran onto a perfect cross from Allison Lizotte and buried it for a 2-1 lead.
“It was more like a semifinal,” said Sandwich coach Dave DeConto, whose team featured just one senior, of the contest. “The Dedham coach gave me his number after the game so we can scrimmage next year. He said we can play with anyone in their league.”
Savi’s lethal ability on corner kicks got Dedham back even before the half was up, however, as she bent one into the goal mouth, off a Sandwich defender to knot things at 2-2 at 32:37, which is how it stood at the break.
“We spent about 20 minutes in Needham (Sunday) working on restarts,” said coach Savi. “We know that a lot of times in these tournament games it comes down to restarts.”
Dedham nearly made it a third goal off a corner when Patrice Vettori appeared to have the left corner picked out off a Savi service, but defender Mikhaela Tropp was on the line to block it, her second such save of the evening.
Two minutes later though Sandwich goalie Sharon Pietryka was on her own when Sarah Warjas sent Savi in alone with a beautiful through ball from the midfield. Savi made the charging Pietryka commit then calmly slipped the ball inside the right post for with 29 minutes to play.
The goal gave Savi 41 points for the season, setting a new Marauder single-season mark.
With less than 13 minutes left the Blue Knights shifted to three forwards, a formation they used much of the regular season, and it generated some added pressure on the Marauders. Sandwich was unable to crack the Dedham defense for the equalizer, with Corcoran snuffing out two prime bids off the feet of Alyssa Anderson and Manganella down the stretch to seal it.
“I didn’t know what to expect, I though we would be able to score some goals, but the question was would we be able to stop them with all their speed,” said Savi. “I think with the long layoff it took us a while to find ourselves. (In the second half), we were more disciplined not running around as much.”
(Tom Fargo is Sports Editor for the Dedham Transcript. He can be reached at (781) 433-8372 or tfargo@cnc.com.)
