By RYAN WALKER
The Norwell Knights continued their winning streak Wednesday night to three games in the win over New Haven 11-1. The offensive explosion of 11 goals was the most on the season by more than double, as eight different players got into the scoring column.
Within the first three minutes of the game, Norwell’s senior Addy Archbold found the back of the net in what would be her first of three goals on the night.
A minute and nine seconds later, freshman Grace Mann scored her first of the night to make it 2-0.
By the 12-minute mark, the Knights had a 5-0 lead from the efforts of junior Makenzie Fuess, Archbold, and sophomore Issie Isch.
IHSAA’s running clock rule would come into play after the game’s fifth goal and continued for the rest of the game.
Three more goals would follow before halftime, taking an 8-0 lead over the Bulldogs. The scorers were by Mann, scoring two on the night, Archbold for her third, and junior Alexis Hartup for her first.
New Haven has seen this type of game before, as they’ve allowed nearly nine goals per contest this season. And without winning a conference game since 2013, Norwell coach Dan Batdorff needed to find ways to improve some minor details they’ve been struggling with during the year.
“Tonight, our goal was to try and fix some of that stuff and continue to make the little passes,” he said. “You work on what you can. We try to work on those passes and movement off the ball to just keep trying to improve each game.”
In the second half, Norwell tallied three more goals from the efforts of freshman Aubrey Meyer and juniors Lilian Norris and Anna Thomas. The lone goal of the night for New Haven was from sophomore Ridley Sheets, with 30 minutes remaining in the game.
Offensively, the Knights were dry at the beginning of the season, scoring just twice in their first four games. But since the 3-2 overtime loss to an undefeated Bellmont team in the conference, Batdorff decided to switch things up on offense to apply pressure to the opposing defense.
“We changed our formation,” he said. “Going into the Bellmont game, we had a really tough game in overtime. That’s helped support us in certain areas. The idea was to get more pressure on offense and start scoring some goals.”
Despite the loss to Bellmont, Batdorff’s team scored two in the loss, five against Wayne and 11 Wednesday against New Haven.
The scoring attack during the change was led by Grace Mann. Mann, like the rest of the team, struggled to find scoring opportunities to start the year. In the last four games, she scored nine goals, including four against Wayne on Monday night.
With the help of her and Addy Achbold’s hat trick, the Knights believe that they have found confidence in the middle of conference play.
“As we move forward, we had to have that defining moment where we could play with a good team, and we proved that with Bellmont,” Batdorff said. “That kind of turned our season to where the girls now are starting to have faith in themselves. Our girls have confidence now.”
Norwell will take their momentum against Northeast 8 Conference foe East Noble on the road at 5:30 Monday, Sept 12.
