Stoughton High Girls' Soccer Scores Tie with Sharon

Both the and Sharon High girls’ soccer teams entered Thursday’s contest in Stoughton coming off grueling ties, a day earlier. The Eagles had a scoreless tie against Mansfield and the Black Knights had a come-from-behind .

And, when the clock ran down on Thursday’s match between these Davenport Division rivals, both teams had to settle for a another tie, 0-0, with neither team able to convert on offense.

With the tie, Stoughton stands at 3-7-2, while Sharon is now 6-3-2.

Sharon dominated territorially, but hit three posts. Stoughton stood tall with solid defense, and in a rare scoring opportunity hit a crossbar.

Despite a continued lack of offense, Black Knights’ coach Gary Muello thought the game could have been his team’s best effort of the season.

The Stoughton offense continues to struggle with only 12 goals in as many games. Meanwhile, Sharon, in a game that it was favored to win, could only come up with a tie.

The Eagles now must go up against unbeaten Canton and once-beaten Oliver Ames, both on the road next week, and try to keep above the .500 mark to advance to the post-season tournament.

“We didn’t take care of business and we didn’t finish off our many chances and hopefully it won’t cost us at the end of the season,” Sharon coach Jon Lavien said.

Sharon forced Stoughton sophomore goaltender Rachel Berkowsky to handle 17 shots and make nine saves. Stoughton could only muster two shots on net and only forced Sharon goaltender and senior co-captain Jordan Greenberg to play four shots.

“Our offense is still struggling, but where we used to falter in the second half, we are now playing more consistently and for a full forty minutes,” Muello said.

Both teams were hindered by injuries. Sharon was playing with a banged up roster and was without junior midfielder and scoring threat Meghan James. Stoughton only had three reserve players and senior tri-captain Alicia Macomber was also playing hurt.

Stoughton got an excellent effort from one of its top scorers, tri-captain Mikayla Williams, who played defense and had three sparkling end-to-end rushes forcing three free kicks. Younger players, freshmen Shelby Sprague and MacKenzie Palma, along with sophomore Sarah Purcell, helped to spark the offense.           

Stoughton got solid defensive efforts from sophomore Val Sammarco, juniors Marlena Siegel and Megan Crimmins.

Sharon’s offense was paced by juniors Samantha Alves and Aashna Narang, along with seniors Allie Friedman and Haley Cremer. Anne Fritzson, a junior, had a strong performance on defense for the Eagles.

Stoughton returns to action on Tuesday at Foxboro in a rematch against the Warriors, a team Stoughton defeated, at home, in the season opener.

“We are getting stronger and better conditioned and playing with more drive and confidence, which will make us a stronger team over the second half of this season,” Muello said.