The North
Hagerstown High School Hubs are one of the top programs in Washington County.
The Middletown High School Knights believe they are on their way back to one of
the top programs in Frederick County. All of this makes for an intriguing
match-up as the heirs to those programs take place as the Hubs and Knights
Junior Varsity Girl’s Soccer teams square off on Tuesday September 13th.
Both teams
are still in the early part of their seasons as the Hubs have played just two
games while the Knights have played just one. In the Hubs’ two games they would
fall to the Century High School Knights by a 2-0 scoreline at home but would
then rebound by taking down the Frederick High School Cadets a 1-0 scoreline.
The improved
Hubs’ squads at both levels comes from a program that has seen a drastic turnaround in the past three years as
the program went from annual bottom dwellers to one of the top programs in
Washington County and a team that could have success on a year in and year out
basis.
That change
in the success of the program started at the JV level as the Hubs used a group
of young talent that slowly climbed up the ranks until they got to Varsity to
turn the fortunes of the program around and get them headed in the right
direction.
Middletown as
a program will hope to emulate the success that North Hagerstown has had in
developing players as the Knights try to reboot their program to what it was
when the Knights were winning consistent state championships from 2010-2012.
The JV team
for the Knights started the reboot off well as they took down the Brunswick
High School Railroaders in a nail-biting comeback victory for the Knights as
after being down 2-0 with 20 minutes left the Knights would storm back
ferociously and score four goals to pick up a two goal win against the
Railroaders that seemed unlikely as the game wore on.
This North
Hagerstown team is a unique one as it is one of the few Junior Varsity teams in
the area that features juniors on the roster as the Hubs carry three 11th
graders with them in the form of forward Nicole Soriano, goalkeeper Glendy
Lemus Lizama, and forward Noor Hakam.
This will
create match-up problems for the Knights as Middletown does lack the experience
that the Hubs bring into the match-up and will also hope to find a connection
after what has been a consistent series of call-ups and send-downs as the
Knights try to find the right combination here early in the season.
Abigail Tatem
who was up with Varsity for some of the earlier games of the season is now back
down to JV as in her place sophomore Sarah O’Toole will head up to Varsity and
get some first team reps. While this is surely to change it is the move for now
is that is how the teams will take on the Hubs.
JV surely
won’t mind getting Tatem back as Tatem provides a strong and consistent force
in the midfield for Middletown.
And, just
like Tatem, O’Toole, and the others the JV team is the beginnings of what the
Knights hope is a very strong future.
No comments:
Post a Comment