Storm scores to lift NM to opening win over Rochester

First-time keeper Edwards stops 6 shots for shutout

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

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North Miami's Kinzy Storm Rochester's Izzy Hook

Kinzy Storm scored the game’s lone goal off a Sydney Lane assist with 9:43 left in the first half as the North Miami girls soccer team edged Rochester 1-0 at the Brent Blacketor Memorial Sports Complex Saturday.

Rochester had a 6-2 advantage in shots on goal and a 7-4 edge in corner kicks, but North Miami earned the win when Storm beat Rochester sophomore goalkeeper Alexandria Cortes-Gustafson one-versus-one at point blank range after a set-up from Lane from the left flank.

Lane, a sophomore, is a newcomer to soccer.

“Pretty frequently,” Storm said when asked how often she works on her finishing skills. “I have a goal at home that I practice with, and at practice, we do shooting skills all the time. … It feels really great. It’s my senior season, and the first win of the season was just really good.”

Brylee Edwards stopped six shots for the shutout. This is her fourth year on the varsity but her first game as a goalkeeper.

“Excellent,” North Miami coach Tricia Hanaway said. “I thought she did a great job coming out of the box to get those balls. … This is her first go-around in goal, so I was really impressed with how she owned the role and came out when needed and used her instincts there. We were super proud of her.”

The teams could meet again in Class 1A, Sectional 36, which Argos will host from Oct. 5-10.

This marked the girls coaching debut for Rochester’s Eric Backus. He spent the previous three seasons coaching the Zebra boys team.

The game was delayed by two hours – it started at noon instead of the scheduled 10 a.m. – in order to prepare the field for play. Overnight rains soaked the field.

“I think we were just not used to the way the ball reacted off the wet surface,” Backus said. “Because a couple of them, I think on a dry surface we would have probably gotten shots. And we just didn’t get to them because they skipped. That was the one thing that we talked about at half to try to adjust to. The ball’s going to move a lot faster, so you might have to take a little bit more off it to play those through balls in.

“I don’t think we played horrible. I thought our effort was great. And we had moments where it looked really good. We just had a couple times where we stopped communicating and reverted back to playing kickball a little bit instead of possessing, and our spacing, we’ve got to work on our positioning as well because our mids (midfielders) are struggling to get back when we lose the ball, and it’s leaving a huge space between the mid and the defense.”

Rochester has 10 seniors: Hailey Crissinger, J.J. Graber, Makhia Harding, Izzy Hook, Ruth Love, Makenna McKee, Gabby Medina, Taylor Navara, Bria Rensberger and Chloe Winn. Graber, McKee and Winn either played a different sport or no sport last fall.

Freshmen Charlie Backus, Hailey Howell, Vada Beasley, Morgan Simpson and Zandra Hardy and sophomores A.J. Graber, Shelby Pearson and Ali Field also got playing time.

Aubrey Miller, who led last year’s team with 11 goals, graduated.

Coach Backus also said North Miami did better at knocking the Lady Zs off the ball in contesting situations.

“You can tell we’ve got a lot of new girls to the soccer team this year from last year, and a lot of them haven’t played in a long time,” coach Backus said. “So these first couple weeks have been a lot of just basic fundamentals – a lot of foot skills, a lot of passing drills. I’ve kind of suffered a little bit of the positioning stuff because of the fact that we’ve had to do a lot of that other stuff to get some of these girls up to speed, but I think you can see the athleticism with Ali Field. And Makenna’s going to get it. She just hasn’t played soccer. She’s very good at using her body. And a lot of the freshmen, this is the first time on a varsity field, and it’s a little bit different than middle school. There’s a little learning curve.”