BREWER – When Bangor girls soccer coach Jeff Ingalls moved Alison Smith from forward to fullback in the preseason, Smith figured her days of scoring goals were over.
But Tuesday night the speedy senior defender made all the difference on offense. Smith’s 35-yard, wind-aided blast over the head of Brewer goalie Amy Freeman broke a scoreless tie and sparked a scoring spurt for the Rams that resulted in a 4-0 victory over the Witches at Doyle Field.
Bangor, now 4-0-1, scored three goals in little more than three minutes.
Last season Smith did nothing but rack up goals and assists. This year she’s been hanging back with defenders Kerri Tuck, Adrienne SoucBosley.
It was a move Smith said she felt comfortable with.
“[Ingalls] was just messing around, putting people in different places to try things and he just ended up putting me there and liking the combination with the other people back there,” Smith said. “I’ve never played back there before. I’m enjoying the switch and it’s kind of neat to see things from different perspectives of the game.”
With the wind at her back, Smith lofted in her shot with 22:13 left in the second half. After taking the kick she actually turned her back on the play in frustration.
“I thought it was definitely clear over the bar and I thought I had messed up badly,” she said. “It was kind of a surprise.”
About 30 seconds later Melissa Achorn fielded a pass from Jana Savage and put a shot from the right post into the net. Achorn added another goal off an assist from Bosley with 19:39 left, and Savage scored with seven minutes left.
The Rams had plenty of chances in the first half, outshooting the Witches 17-2, but Bangor shots sailed over the crossbar, clanged the right post, went wide left and wide right.
“We were in the right places but we jsut weren’t finishing,” Savage said. “It was basically getting our heads into the game. [Ingalls] told us to play cerebrally and I think then we started making better passes.”
Despite giving up the four goals Freeman, a freshman, had a solid game with 24 saves on 35 shots.
Brewer also had several close calls in the second half, including a shot that skimmed along the Bangor goalmouth but never rolled in. Brewer’s best chance in the first came on a through ball from Rachel Wing that Melissa Jacobs ran an and shot at Bangor goalie Katherine Miller. Miller made the save.
“We played pretty well but we didn’t take advantage of the wind in the first half,” said Brewer coach Bill Schwarz, whose Witches are now 1-4. “We did the best we could in the first half. We played them 0-0.”
Miller and Emily Gunning faced a total of four shots.
JV: Bangor 5-0
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