Another unseasonable blistering hot November afternoon greeted the JV girls teams of Kingswood Oxford and the visiting Taft School. The occasion took on special significance as KO were hosting their Senior Day. Despite starting quickly, Taft were quickly on the backfoot when a long punt by KO fell kindly for their striker who put it beyond the reach of Taft’s stand-in goalie Clarisse Moucha. Taft struggled to gain momentum for a while but slowly started building some solid attacking play with the midfield of Liv Samuelsen, Anavi Angst, Ellie Taylor, and Cece Chaterjee working together well to eventually put together some of the best plays of the season thus far. This excellent work paid off in the 12th minute when Georgia Lowenberg beat the KO keeper with an expertly timed shot. For the rest of the half, Tat continued to gain ascendency, but could not find the back of the net again, and the sides went in level at 1-1 for half-time. The start of the second half mirrored the first in that Taft again conceded an early goal. This time, however, they recovered far quicker than in the first half and began peppering the KO goal with numerous shots. On one such attack an expert Taylor through-ball found Coco O’Brien who deployed tremendous pace and then placed the ball with aplomb beyond the KO keeper to bring the scores level again. It was an especially poignant goal as O’Brien, one of Taft’s captains, was playing her first game of the season after a long injury layoff. THe expertise of her finish made it feel as if she had never been away. From then on, it was one-way traffic in Taft’s favor, and they scored again just three minutes later with another expert side-foot finish from Lowenberg. Taft’s defense also began to dominate and special praise is reserved for Dylan Carver, Emma Weitzel, and Madison Kirkland. Though Taft followed up with numerous close missed chances, it took until the 71st minute to seal the victory for the away side. Lane Childs, who worked tirelessly throughout the game and played excellently, put the cap on a great team performance with a final goal. The game ended 4-2 in Taft’s favor. This was an excellent team performance and the team moves on to the final game of the season. The coaches are proud of their players!