Following their season-opening 4-1 loss to Dover, Alvirne’s girls’ soccer team dropped their first game of the week 4-1 against last season’s champion Timberlane Owls before returning home to take on Salem and drawing the Blue Devils 0-0.
In their first game of the week, Alvirne entered the game as a heavy underdog, especially after finishing last in the table in 2023 with Timberlane winning the 2023 Division I State Championship.
Despite being the heavy underdogs, they came away with the same result as their opener against Dover, with a 4-1 loss against the Owls. Alvirne was able to hold their own for the most part, however, which even though it doesn’t show up in the standings, can create momentum that may carry over game to game and ultimately throughout the remainder of the regular season.
On Friday, Alvirne returned home to take on the Salem Blue Devils at home, and came away with points for the first time this season thanks to a 0-0 draw thanks to the newly-minted lack of regular season overtime this season.
In Friday’s game, goalkeeping was the story for both teams, as Ashtyn Willard and Lindsay Goetz were excellent, as the score suggests, matching each other shot for shot and save for save. Willard was arguably slightly better than Goetz, but both were stellar.
Alvirne did have a number of chances for attackers like Emma Coppi and Alekhya Buddhiraju, as well as a couple quality chances for Haylie Christman. Despite their high-quality chances, the Broncos were unable to best Goetz, partially due to mishits on shots, and much more due to solid play by Goetz. Similar things can be said for Salem. The Blue Devils had a number of chances to score, including some quality chances for Aaliyah Hajjar, Amelia Murray, and Sara Espaillat. None of them were able to beat the Bronco netminder, though, keeping the game at a 0-0 draw.
This week, Alvirne will head to Nashua South on Wednesday and return home on Thursday to take on Portsmouth at the Barn. Both teams enter the week at 1-2 with the Purple Panthers having beat Portsmouth 1-0 last Thursday for their lone win after losses 4-0 to Bedford and 6-0 to Winnacunnet. Portsmouth picked up a 1-0 win over Concord to open the season before their 1-0 loss to South and another 1-0 loss against Nashua North two days
