Season Wrapup

When the Scotch Plains Lightning U-13 Girls’ Soccer team started their season last Labor Day weekend in the late summer swelter they used a dominant defense to sweep through the field and win four straight games. When they finished the season in warm late spring weather they were an offensive juggernaut and were unbeaten in the final four. In between there were many great victories, only one decisive defeat, some frustrating games but the overall theme was a team that improved and never conceded anything no matter what the score.

Coach Luis Rodriguez perhaps best typified the season when he said ‘I wish it wasn’t ending. We are really finding our way”.
The biggest challenge Rodriguez had in moving the team from flight five last fall to the much tougher flight four was
the change in opposition.

“The teams were much better in the spring and it took us time to realize that”, said Rodriguez. The coach had to shuffle his lineup in midseason and that made all the difference. If the Lightning use this season as a springboard to huge success next year, perhaps they will look at a game they lost as the turning point. On a cold blustery Mother’s Day the Lightning faced their season long nemesis the Central Jersey Tidalwave. Things looked grim when the Tidalwave capitalized on Lightning defensive mistakes to grab a 4-0 lead midway through the first half. It was then that Rodriguez moved star defender Jovanni Costello to midfield. The change energized the Lightning who just missed coming all the way back an dlost 4-2 despite dominating the second half.

After that Costello moved to midfield and an offensive juggernaut emerged. First the Lightning completely dominated the Edison
United Express scoring five goals in the first half enroute to a 5-0 pounding. Despite only scoring one goal the following week against the tough Montclair Lightning it was enough for a satisfying 1-1 tie and set the stage for a remarkable comeback at Flemington which probably would have fallen short earlier in the year. but the newly confident Lightning came back from 3-0 and 5-2 deficits to forge a remarkable 5-5 tie one of only two blemishes on first place Flemington’s record this spring. The season ended with a complete annihilation of Millburn by a 5-2 score that showed off many of the teams’ new offensive weapons.

The spring had begun miserably with a 5-0 loss on March 23 at Central Jersey in a game that really had no business being played. The weather was horrible a cold blustery rain with wind chills in the 20’s caused many of the parents to watch from their cars. The Lightning recovered to beat their favorite patsies Edison in a tough 3-2 struggle. They then lost two agonizing games-a 2-1 home loss to eventual flight champion Flemington and a 2-1 loss at Montclair on a goal in the final minute after they had tied the game on a header by Kristen Thompson with three minutes left. A 1-0 home win over Millburn completed the first half but the Lightning’s continued offensive problems foced Rodriguez to shuffle players for more offense.

The fall portion of the schedule lent doubt to the theory about whther more offense was needed. The Lightning,starting with their four shutout performance at the Piscataway tourney completely shut teams down on their was to an over 10-2 mark which put them second in flight five and guaranteed elevation to the much tougher flight 4. two narrow losses to their nemeisis Central jersey were more than offset by sweeps of Edison,Montogomery and South Plainfierld thr latter by a pair of 3-0 whitewashes.

The Lightning saw a very early end to their season on November 10. A scheduled November 17 game was postponed because of the