CANTON, Mass. – Inside the opening 10 minutes of Wednesday night’s game at WWII Veterans Memorial Field, Foxboro saw itself go behind. A bad bounce (or fortuitous if you were on the Canton side) left the Warriors down, but far from out. The league’s second-highest scorer, Foxboro was confident that it could find one goal in the next 70 minutes.
As it turned out, the Warriors got five. Behind a Kailee McCabe hat trick, Foxboro turned around the early deficit to run out 5-2 winners at Canton, once again moving into a first-place tie with Oliver Ames atop the Davenport division.
“After we got down by that one goal, I could just see that they knew they were going to come back and win this game,” said Foxboro coach Katie Stalcup. “I have that confidence in them and I think we’ve just come together so strongly as a team that they just have that faith in each other that they’re going to make it work.”
Foxboro nearly opened the scoring after seven minutes. Jordan Carman’s pass from the left wing picked out McCabe on the edge of the box. Elyse Broderick was able to get two hands to the shot and tip it over the bar. Just two minutes later, Canton found the opener. Sarah Dempster’s free kick from midfield took a huge bounce in the box, stranding Foxboro keeper Alexis Sougaris and ending up in the back of the net.
The Bulldogs were absorbing pressure but seemed buoyed by the early goal and were getting some success attacking down the wings. Fay Gallery won the ball in midfield and fed it to Emily McCabe, who in turn found Emma Cahill streaking down the right wing. The freshman’s cross just eluded Gallery at the back post. A few minutes later, it was McCabe on the right wing crossing but again Gallery couldn’t make contact on the far side.
Two goals in two minutes turned the game on its head and sophomore Erin Foley was the impetus behind both. First, she made a smart run in the box and was brought down by Broderick to earn a penalty that McCabe coolly put away. Just two minutes later, Foley pressured Dempster, forcing a turnover, and hit a curling, first-time shot over Broderick and under the bar from a tight angle.
“She’s just a grinder,” Stalcup said of Foley. “She just has so much competitive energy. I told her the other day that’s something I can’t coach. She just has so much emotion and passion and competitiveness that it fuels so much of her game.”
Canton continued to hold its own. Injuries have taken their toll for the Bulldogs, forcing Ava Gilmore to move out of defense into the midfield, but Allie McCabe was handling the Foxboro attacks and it remained a one-goal game for another 10 minutes.
Then Kailee McCabe made a goal out of nothing. The league’s leading scorer and reigning MVP, fired a shot from 35 yards out on the right side of the box and placed it into the far bottom corner to make it 3-1.
“Where we’re getting hurt most in the midfield,” said Senyonjo, who was missing two starters to injuries and had several other players banged up. “If we can put on this same performance with a few more healthy bodies then we might be able to get something out of the next few games and hopefully we can squeeze into the playoffs.”
With two minutes to go until halftime, Canton had a chance to get back within one. Gabriella Herivaux played a pass into Cahill charging down the right. The freshman cut back onto her left foot, but her shot from the edge of the box was parried at full stretch by Sougaris.
Momentum remained with the visitors coming out of the break. A cross from Brooke Barreira nearly found Foley for her second but the redirected shot went wide. Canton came close after a cross from deep by Kristina Keefe found Anne Hoban on the far side of the box. The senior’s glancing header went narrowly wide, possibly clipping the post on its way past the corner.
McCabe continued to be a thorn in the side of the Canton defense, finding little pockets of space on the edge of the area. Twice she forced great diving saves out of Broderick before finally completing her hat trick in the 63rd minute with a perfectly-placed shot from the edge of the box into the corner.
“She’s just this gift that was given to Foxboro and we’re just so thankful and grateful to have her,” Stalcup said. The pairing of McCabe with Carman up top has proved very fruitful for the Warriors. Stalcup explained, “That goal when Jordan passed it back to her and Kailee finished it, they just read each other so well and they’re just so quick on the ball. It’s just beautiful soccer.”
Like in the first half, Foxboro wasted no time adding another. A long ball from sweeper Lindsey Resnick found Carman behind the defense and she rounded Broderick before firing home from an acute angle.
Carman nearly added a second on a similar play a few minutes later, but this time her shot flashed through the box and out the other side. Just a minute before that shot, Cahill had gotten free on a rare foray into the attacking third and clipped the bar with a cross from the right.
McCabe forced another save out of Broderick in the 74th minute and the Canton keeper reacted quickly to clean up the rebound in front of Neve Taylor.
Canton would get a second goal in the closing minutes. Emily McCabe’s corner to the back post was met by Gallery, whose firm header from close range gave the keeper no chance.
“When you have a player that can make goals out of nothing, it’s just a killer,” said Senyonjo. “We had a game plan coming in, we stuck to it for the most part, and it worked. I still think the 5-2 scoreline doesn’t reflect how well we played but that’s the nature of the business we’re in. A couple mistakes here or there we could’ve avoided, we started well, but that’s a tough team.”
With the win, Foxboro (9-1-1) extended its unbeaten run to 10 games heading into Friday’s visit of state power Bishop Feehan. Canton (3-5-3) will get a few days off to heal before a visit from Attleboro on Tuesday.