Andrews helps Milford girls soccer get first win over Bedford

MILFORD – Chances are, there haven’t been goals in New Hampshire girls soccer like the first one Morgan Andrews scored Tuesday in Milford High School’s 2-0 win over Bedford.

But there haven’t been many high school players in the state like Andrews.

The Milford junior took a pass from Christina Vlachos and found herself trapped against the sideline by a handful of Bedford players, a good 25 or 30 yards from the goal. Or at least, she looked to be trapped.

With the ball behind her, Andrews dropped a foot back and tapped the ball to her right, catching the defense by surprise. The move gave her just enough time to collect the ball and boot it toward the goal.

At first, it appeared Bedford goalie Jess Joseph was easily going to catch the shot, but the ball began to bend as it fell. By the time the shot’s trajectory had changed, Joseph was too far out and her leaping attempt at a save wasn’t enough as the ball hooked into the corner of the net.

The Bedford players, coaches and fans looked stunned, as did some of the Milford fans.

“It was unbelievable,” Milford coach John Vlachos said. “She’s a national player. She had a great game.”

Andrews added a second goal after halftime. As Bedford tried to clear the ball from inside the box, Andrews jumped in front to deflect. The ball sailed past the goalkeeper and slowly rolled toward the corner of the goal. A Milford and Bedford player battled for it before Andrews came over and knocked it in, slamming into the post in the process.

“Nobody is going to save that ball,” Bedford coach Michelle Winning said of the first goal. “She’s a phenomenal player. We tried at first to double-team her, but we weren’t creating any offense. We pulled one up and Katie Downer did a phenomenal job. She did exactly what I asked her to do.

“A player like that takes everybody out of their game. They worry about her so much that it psyches everybody out. That’s why she’s on the national team.”

Teaching point

Bedford has been one of the top teams in Division II since the school opened in 2007, and this season has been no different for the Bulldogs. But unlike the last few years, Bedford is young this season, as Winning starts just three seniors, along with three freshmen.

For some players, it was their first time playing against someone like Andrews and it showed. At times, four or five Bedford players surrounded Andrews, even when she didn’t have the ball.

“Those are mistakes you make when you have a young team,” Winning said. “No matter if they have that one player, they have others. We can dedicate one or two to her, but we can’t dedicate 11, and that’s why we went down in the first half. Second half, we kind of came through.”

Despite their youth, the Bulldogs are 7-3 in the division and have exhibited traits that Winning hasn’t seen in some of her other teams at Bedford.

“There is a desire there that I haven’t seen in this program,” she said. “They’re young and we have good leadership from the few upperclassmen that we have. Overall, this is a great team. It’s by far one of the great teams that I’ve had the pleasure of coaching because of the way they play together.

“Yeah, we’re going to have our down days and days where we don’t play where I think we should play. We don’t really have individuals that take the game over. I love my team.”

First time

Tuesday’s win was the first for Milford (5-3-1) against Bedford, which seems odd to say, considering that the Spartans girls soccer program has been around longer. But none of the Milford players were thinking about that after the game.

“We needed to have this game,” Vlachos said. “They’ve always beaten us up. My first year (in 2008), we had them 1-1 and they beat us in overtime. This was a game that we needed to get back in the thick of things.”

Milford was able to get the win thanks to the solid defensive play of Brit White and Ashley Federico. The two were able to turn aside any good chance the Bulldogs had, while goalkeeper Alex Hiley was in position to clean up everything else.

“Alex Hiley is one of the better goalies in the league and she handled everything she needed to handle,” Vlachos said. “They didn’t get any great shots on us. They got shots, but they were all outside.”

The meeting was the only one for the teams during the regular season.