MANCHESTER, N.H. – It was never supposed to happen this quickly for Danielle Rappa’s program at Pinkerton Academy.
With plenty of talent, albeit young, Rappa truthfully could’ve only asked for a tournament run to gain some experience for the future.
“No, I never would have expected a state championship to happen this year,” said Rappa with a laugh.
To be fair, with key players such as Bella Sippel, Damoira Smith, and Audrey Earehart all returning with at least one year to go, “young” teams never are expected to win the whole thing.
Well, this Pinkerton team is different, even with minimal experience deep in the state tournament.
On Saturday afternoon, No. 6 Pinkerton dominated on all cylinders, defeating No. 4 Winnacunnet, 3-1, for its first program state championship since 2016.
“It just shows you how coachable this group of girls is, how far they’ve come from the first half of the season to the second half,” said Rappa. “I think we proved today that we are a top team in New Hampshire by the way we played.”
It was a tournament run that began with a preliminary round victory over Salem, before avenging defeat at the hands of Bedford.
After the Astros played Bishop Guertin back in October, even though it ended in a defeat, Rappa knew something was just different with this team.
“Even though we lost to BG, we felt very evenly matched, we were able to possess, and control the game the way we wanted to,” said Rappa. “That showed us we weren’t this underdog team anymore, that we could compete with the best of the best.”
Pinkerton immediately took the lead just five minutes into the game, as Nora Brayall found the back of the net.
With 15 minutes remaining in the first half, Isabel Rolfe doubled the Astros lead.
As if the Pinkerton faithful couldn’t feel it anymore, freshman Cara Mahn’s goal to begin the second half put the nail in the coffin, as the Astros clinched the title.
“Part of our strategy is to run defenses down, and having this amount of depth helps with that,” said Rappa. “We’ve been doing it well throughout the past few weeks, and did it again here today.”
For Brayall, she’s well aware that this could be the beginning of something special for Pinkerton girls soccer.
“I would say that’s definitely accurate,” said Brayall when asked if this is the start of things to come. “We basically have everyone to run it back again next year, so there’s no reason to say it can’t happen.”
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