By Bill Landon
Seniors Jillian Winwood and Michaela Bartley totaled for seven goals in Kings Park’s 16-6 road win over Elwood-John Glenn April 17.
After 11 minutes, and with the Kingmen already up 5-0, the Knights tallied their first goal of the game, when freshman Michelle Torzilli dished the ball off to senior Madisyn Hausch, who scored on the cut The pair mixed it up on their team’s next possession, when Hausch flipped the ball to Torzilli, who found the right corner to make it a three-goal game.
“We have played a lot of the heavy-hitter teams early in the season, and Kings Park was expected to be a closer matchup for us,” Elwood-John Glenn head coach Janine Bright said. “We expected them to be tough due to their level of experience as they’re a team of almost all 11th and 12th graders.”
Winwood scored in response, but John Glenn junior Carly Guder scored to maintain the margin with three minutes till the halftime.
“We came out feeling that we could play strong today — we showed teamwork — we worked the ball around a lot, which was our game plan to possess the ball,” Kings Park head coach Sally Ayres said. “Jill Winwood has always led our team, along with Michaela Bartley.”
The Kingsmen stretched the net twice more before the break, courtesy of eight-grader Kiara Feibusch, who scored off a feed from Winwood, and senior Shannon Savage, for an 8-3 advantage.
“John Glenn definitely put up a good fight, [but] we came into today’s game with our heads up after a tough loss last week to Islip,” Winwood said. “Our team played well — we were very unselfish with lots of assists and goals spread all around our roster, so I happy to have another ‘W.’”
The Knights scored first to open the second half, when junior Victoria Cacioppo went the distance unassisted, but the Kingsmen rattled off five unanswered goals to surge ahead 13-4 with 15 minutes remaining.
John Glenn senior Sarah Weitman’s goal stalled the Kings Park scoring frenzy, but it was short lived.
“Sarah [Weitman] has literally played all positions for us this season, other than goalie,” Bright said. “She was able to go into this game and give 100 percent and was a big part of our offense and defense at different points of the game.”
Kings Park lit up the scoreboard two more times in the contest. Cacioppo and Torzilli led John Glenn with two goals apiece, and Hausch and Guder each had one.
Winwood topped the scoring chart with four goals and five assists, Bartley followed with a hat trick and two assists and Feibusch, the youngest player on the team, also had three goals, and added an assist.
Bartley said she hopes her team can continue its winning ways when Kings Park hosted Eastport-South Manor April 19.
“We have a tough game coming up against Eastport-South Manor,” Bartley said. “So I hoping that with this ‘W’ we can carry this momentum and hopefully we can come out on top.”
Results of the matchup were not available by press time. Kings Park travels to East Islip next, April 21, for a 4 p.m. matchup at East Islip Middle School.
“We had a strong performance in goal in the first half and most of the second with [sophomore] Lexie Kotsailidis,” said Ayres of her goalkeeper who finished the win with 11 saves. “We’ll build on this momentum going into our next game knowing that when we work together as a team, positive things can happen.”
