Regardless of the sport, there’s always pride on the line whenever North Summit and South Summit face each other. With the extra pressure of playing on their home field, the Wildcats’ girls soccer team set the tone early in Tuesday’s rivalry game.
Senior Becca Anderson put South Summit on top just a couple minutes into the game, and five unanswered goals — four of which were in the second half — turned the matchup into a 7-1 blowout for the Wildcats.
South Summit coach Clayton Alexander was pleased with his team’s ability to meet the moment.
“It feels good, I think that it’s a good way to see the fruits of their labors, right, that they can accomplish hard things and that working toward something and practicing toward something can have the results that they want,” Alexander said. “Whether it’s a rivalry game or not, I would expect that we come out and play the same way regardless. I’m glad that we use it as an opportunity to get better. I feel like the players had that focus in mind of coming in with specific goals and working to accomplish those goals during the game.”
South Summit’s hot start only improved when sophomore Reagan Beckstead doubled the Wildcats’ lead just 15 minutes into the first half. However, North Summit responded with a goal of its own just a couple minutes later. Then, senior McKenna Smart’s tally with just 10 minutes left in the first half restored the two-goal South Summit lead going into halftime.
“I’m actually glad that North Summit got that goal because they deserved it, number one,” Alexander said. “Number two, we let up. It was like we got two goals up and then we decided to start sitting back a little bit. And I’m glad they put one in on us because we snapped right back, and it was one of those things that was like, ‘No, we’re going to play the full 80 minutes today.'”
The second half started out almost identically to the first. The Wildcats forced a turnover near the top of North Summit’s 18-yard-box, which led to senior Jenevieve Witham’s first goal of the game to extend the lead to 4-1. From there, South Summit was off to the races.
Another turnover — off a goal kick this time — led to another Wildcats goal later in the second half, as sophomore Marina Moore added another tally. Senior Adaline Farmer converted another opportunity into a goal shortly after, and Witham scored the Wildcats’ seventh goal of the game with 15 minutes left to complete the blowout.
South Summit was coming off a 6-0 loss against Maeser Prep Academy and improved to 3-4, while North Summit moved to 0-2 on the season. The Wildcats received a much-needed morale boost before traveling to Morgan to face the reigning state champion Trojans in their first region game of the season this Tuesday.
“This is great momentum for what we want to bring into the Morgan game, focusing on our intensity, our passing ability, believing in ourselves that we can shoot and get goals and that we have a strong defense,” Alexander said. “I think you saw today that we really didn’t see the ball come down to our defensive third very often because of how well we maintained our position. So a lot of good signs heading into Morgan, but it’ll be another opportunity to get better and keep working as a team.”