By RUSSELL JONES
PROCTOR — The Proctor girls soccer team hosted Poultney for their last regular season game on Saturday, Oct. 19 at Taranovich Field. The Phantoms came in with a 12-1 record compared to the 1-11-1 record of the Blue Devils, which was reflected in the score: Proctor 6, Poultney 0.
Seniors Maddie Flanders and Allie Almond were the catalysts driving the Phantoms to another win. Flanders scored four goals and Almond added two of her own. Proctor ended their season with a 13-1 record and hold the top seed in Division IV.
Playoff pairings were announced on Monday and Proctor will play Mount St. Joseph’s on Tuesday, Oct. 22, after The Reporter’s print deadline. (We’ll post the results online at brandonreporter.com)
MSJ has a 1-13 record and should be no problem for a physical Proctor team. But Proctor head coach Chris Hughes is making sure his team does not look past a Mounties team that his girls beat twice this season by a combined score of 8-0.
“No way do we look past any games in the tournament,” Hughes said. “It is one game at a time. We feel when you are looking too far ahead is when you don’t play your best and can get beat.”
The only loss for the Phantoms on the season came against Arlington last week. If both teams win their first two playoff games, they would meet again for the semifinals on Wednesday, Oct. 30.
“We need to win four games. To do that we must win the 50-50 balls and use our possession skills to control the tempo of the game,” he said. “We go away from that and we can have trouble.”
Proctor has consistently looked like the best team on the field all season and their keeper play has been spectacular, shutting out eight of the 14 teams they played. They did have close calls, pulling out a one-point victory against both Arlington and West Rutland.
“We know there are a lot of good teams out there including Arlington, West Rutland and Rivendell, but we have to worry about ourselves and deal with whoever comes in our path,” Hughes said. “We are excited to try to get back to our ninth straight State Championship game and this time we hope we can finish the run.”
Update: Proctor defeated MSJ by a score of 7-0 on Tuesday. Maggie McKearin had a hat trick and Maddie Flanders, Allie Almond, Sidney Wood and Dez Traverse all added goals. The Phantoms take on Sharon at 3 p.m. on Friday.
