By Michael Letendre

BRISTOL – With less than ten minutes to play in regulation, the Bristol Eastern and Wethersfield girls soccer teams were deadlocked at 1-1 on Tuesday night with a possible overtime session looming.

However, Bristol Eastern sophomore Emma Stavens and her teammates weren’t in the mood for overtime play.

With 9:18 remaining in a hotly contested bout, Stavens stole the ball from the Wethersfield defense, made a couple quick dribbles and then blasted the ball into the Eagles’ net as the game-winning tally propelled the Lancers to a 2-1 victory from Alumni Field in Bristol.

It was the first win of the season for the locals (1-3) while Wethersfield lost for the first time (1-1-1).

“The individual effort to fight through that [scrum], to continue to get a quality touch with high pressure to prep it and then to finish off too was beautiful,” said Eastern coach Scott Redman of Stavens’ game-winner. “She’s been playing well for most of the year. This has been coming.”

Due to a red card on Wethersfield’s Andrea Buzas about three minutes before the game-winning goal, the Lancers had a one-man advantage on the field late in the fray.

But the Stavens’ score came out of nowhere – a tantalizing steal and sizzling goal that highlighted a tremendous evening of action by a Lancers squad hungry for its first win of the campaign.

“When we play our best game, we can compete with anybody,” said Redman.

Eastern was grinding the entire match, kept the Wethersfield offense looking from the outside in while the defense – headlined by an outstanding effort from keeper Grace D’Amato – was able to topple an aggressive Eagles’ attack.

“We know we can play with them,” said Redman. “It’s just a matter of can we put it together for 80 minutes? And I told [the players after the game], we didn’t put together 80 minutes today. But

we put together a lot more than we have in 65-70 minutes of really hard, physical pressure [that] frustrated Wethersfield for most of the game and they weren’t able to play their style.”

“We forced them to play our [style] and we got the result we’ve been begging for all year.”

Eastern seniors Audra Porowski and Maura Cyr helped lead the defensive charge along with Cecelia Gilbert and Leah Roy on the back line.

That outfit shutout Wethersfield over the first half of play as the Lancers held the halftime lead for the third match this season.

That group helped the squad to keep the advantage even after the game-winner from Stavens.

Eastern did a good job of speeding up the game early while on defense, Wethersfield had precious few shots on the Eastern goal.

Offensively for the Lancers, Megan Krok, Taigan Parent, Breanna Venturo-Nelson, Isabella Sanchez – who played extremely well against the Eagles – Stavens, Nelson and Collins kept the Wethersfield defense working all game long.

Off some 50-50 play to start the event, Eastern had several early chances with the ball.

And off an Eastern corner kick with 24:22 remaining in the first period, Emily Nelson set up goal scoring sensation Ciara Collins with a perfect cross.

Collins was hanging right in front of the Wethersfield goal as Nelson booted a perfect ball to the senior forward.

Collins turned on the ball and fired it into the Eagles’ net as the Lancers wrangled up a 1-0 edge.

D’Amato then beat Wethersfield offenders to the ball late in the first half, with the senior keeper making a couple critical saves, as Eastern carried that one-goal edge into the half.

“I thought the first thirty minutes we played really physical,” said Redman. “We didn’t let them have time to find their shape and support. So the pressure, and that’s what we said [to the players in] pregame, we’ve got to pressure. You’ve got to play physical. You’ve got to pressure.”

I thought they did that really, really well.”

Wethersfield was aggressive to open the second half as Sindy Hima had a great chance but booted the ball over the Eastern net, and quickly after that attempt, the Eagles managed to knot the contest at 1-1.

From the middle of the field, Wethersfield’s Kayla Ward found teammate Bella Bonfiglio striking towards the Eastern goal and off a slick pass forward, Bonfiglio just snuck the ball past D’Amato from the left side as the event was all tied up with 35:33 to play.

However, the Eastern defense did not panic even as D’Amato was under fire again.

She later made a nice foot save to keep Wethersfield from scoring the go-ahead goal and even as the Eagles out-shot the Lancers over the final period, the defense held its ground.

“She’s been playing great all year against some really talented teams,” said Redman of D’Amato.

The play evened out after the Wethersfield goal as both teams missed chances on game-winning tallies.

With 12:15 remaining, Buzas drew her read card, giving Eastern the advantage, and about three minutes later, Stavens scored to propel the Lancers to a 2-1 lead.

Eastern then slowed the match down, the home team loaded the goal box when needed, and did a tremendous job playing keep-away with sustained drives to run out the clock.

And in the end, Eastern scooped up a satisfying 2-1 victory to get to the pay window for the first time in 2021.

 “What had us playing even better was the fact that after we win those balls, we were possessing,” said Redman. “We weren’t just kicking and praying, kind of like the end of the game where we were just trying to ride out time. We were possessing, we were finding feet, [and] we were supporting each other. We didn’t have that for 80 minutes. But that first half and multiple first halves this year, we’ve had that quality, we’ve had that possession [and] we’ve played soccer not just a physical fight.”

“That’s what the difference was.”

Bristol Eastern girls soccer

BRISTOL EASTERN 2, WEHERSFIELD 1

from Alumni Field on the campus of Bristol Eastern

Scoring                       1 2 – F

Wethersfield              0 1 – 1

Bristol Eastern          1 1 – 2

Halftime – Bristol Eastern led 1-0.

First Half Scoring:

Bristol Eastern (24:22) – Ciara Collins, from Emily Nelson

Second Half Scoring:

Wethersfield (44:27) – Bella Bonfiglio, from Kayla Ward

Bristol Eastern (70:42) – Emma Stavens, unassisted

Records: Bristol Eastern 1-3; Wethersfield 2-1-1 overall