No matter how many scoring opportunities it manages to accrue, scoring goals has not proven to be easy for the Londonderry High School girls’ soccer squad this fall.
That continued to be the case on into the Division I tournament last week, but the third-ranked Lady Lancers did manage to score once in their opening-round meeting with number 14 Dover and once more in their quarterfinal-round battle with sixth-seeded Concord to bag a pair of 1-0 victories and advance to a semifinal-round match with the tough, second-ranked Manchester Central Little Green at Stellos Stadium in Nashua Thursday, Nov. 5 at 4 p.m.
In the downing of Dover at LHS Thursday, Oct. 29, the local ladies had to go to overtime to knock off the upstart Green Wave group, with Erin Barnes becoming the hero by taking a pass from Laurel Goding and disposing of the ball in the Dover cage four minutes into overtime.
The Lady Lancers thumped 24 shots on the Green Wave net while the visitors only managed to get four blasts on Londonderry goalie Jackie Luckhardt.
The team, who moved their season record to 14-3 with that hard-fought success, had defeated Dover by a 2-1 score in Londonderry in their regular season meeting on Oct. 19.
The LHS bunch then played host to the Concord Crimson Tide in quarterfinal play at LHS last Sunday, Nov. 1, and potted the only goal it wound up needing in the 67th minute of play when MacKenzie Donovan was set up by Sammy LeClair.
The Lady Lancers enjoyed a 7-4 advantage in shots on net, with Luckhardt turning aside all four Tide shots in her team’s 10th shutout of 2015.
As was the case with Dover, the Lady Lancers had bested Concord by a 2-1 score when the sides met up at LHS during the regular season.
That brings coach Derek Dane’s Londonderry High crew to this week’s semifinal-round meeting with a Central squad that defeated the Lady Lancers by a 1-0 score in Manchester on Oct. 7.