Strong second half propels Titans past Northmen

By Jacob Marrocco
Posted 11/3/15

The No. 3 Toll Gate girls’ soccer team got two goals apiece from Marisa Giard and Hannah McNulty en route to a 4-1 opening-round win over No. 6 North Smithfield in the Division II playoffs on …

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Strong second half propels Titans past Northmen

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The No. 3 Toll Gate girls’ soccer team got two goals apiece from Marisa Giard and Hannah McNulty en route to a 4-1 opening-round win over No. 6 North Smithfield in the Division II playoffs on Saturday morning.

Giard bookended the game with her two goals, while in the middle state-leading scorer McNulty notched a couple of her own, including the eventual game-winner.

The Titans took a 2-0 lead in the second half after McNulty danced by the Northmen defense and sent a shot past Samantha Kent for her first of the morning. McNulty was smothered in the first half before finding ways to score after the break.

“She’s kinda used to being clogged up like that with the defenders surrounding her, but her finesse on the ball, she’s able to get around the defender, deke the defender, fake them out, and she’s able to create her own space,” Toll Gate head coach Lonna Razza said of McNulty. “Just kinda got to let her go and have it.”

North Smithfield didn’t quit, though, as captain Gabrielle Fernandes was taken down in the box with 15 minutes to go and was awarded a penalty kick. Fernandes put a shot past the right side of goalkeeper Ani Armenakyan to cut the deficit in half, 2-1.

The Northmen fought to even the score, but seven minutes later McNulty would put those hopes to rest. Freshmen defender Julia Grossi took a corner kick and sent it right near the goal to McNulty, who put a high header over Kent’s hands and into the net.

“It’s unbelievable,” Razza said of her team’s resilience after North Smithfield made it a one-goal game. “It shows what their character’s like and their perseverance and how hard they’ve been working since August 17, when we stepped on this field [in City Park] for the first time for preseason.”

Compounding the two-goal deficit was the swarming Toll Gate defense, led by senior captain Heather Allstrom, which allowed very few chances to the Northmen after that point and for much of the game before that. Senior Nicole Krause, junior Karla Wostenholme and freshman Grossi also anchored the defense.

Fernandes had multiple chances in the first half, too, but the Titans’ back four descended upon her in the box to ensure nothing materialized.

“The defense is very, very strong,” Razza said. “They’re unbelievable. If you told me at the beginning of the year I’d have a freshman playing the middle of the defense, all 80 minutes of every game, I would have laughed, but [Grossi] has proven me completely wrong.”

With one minute to go, Giard collected a pass in the box and iced the victory with her second score, bringing the Titans’ lead out to 4-1 and sending them to the semifinals.

Giard’s first goal of the morning broke a scoreless stalemate very late in the first half. With just a couple of minutes to go, Melissa Cianci failed to clear the ball out of the Northmen zone and it rolled to Giard at the top left corner of the box. She fired a shot into the top right corner of the net past Kent’s outstretched arms to send Toll Gate into the intermission with a 1-0 lead.

Giard generated a few more chances on the day, too, as she had a couple of crosses to teammate Lily Fortin that just missed her head and bounced away harmlessly.

Toll Gate rode that offensive momentum all the way to the end, picking up the largest win of any quarterfinals matchup on the day.

The Titans will now go to East Greenwich High School for the semifinals on Thursday evening, facing off against cross-town rival and reigning D-II champion Pilgrim for a chance to go to the finals on Sunday.

Toll Gate and Pilgrim split the season series. First, the Titans defeated the Pats 2-1 at home. The rematch at Pilgrim ended with a 3-2 Pats win after Alexis Vieira was awarded a controversial penalty kick and converted.

“I don’t want to take anything away from their girls, Tom’s got a great team over there, nothing you can do about a bad call by a referee,” Razza said. “That’s burning a little bit inside of the girls, obviously with me. So I think they’re gonna go out there and show that they flat-out wanna win this game, and they’re gonna go out there and do everything possible they can to do it.”

There’s no question that the intensity will be there when the Titans and Pats both vie for a title game berth on Thursday.

“We won the first game, second game was tough, we should have won, but we’re gonna come back and we’re gonna get them,” McNulty said with a smile.

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