Flyer pride
Saturday morning and afternoon combined to make for a good day for Framingham's soccer program.
Seeded fifth in their respective tournaments, both the boys and girls advanced to this week's Division 1 quarterfinals after hosting a doubleheader at Framingham High School.
While the boys sweated out a 1-0 victory against Medford, the girls took care of business early and often to send Salem packing with a 5-1 loss.
"It's always nice to get in the board early, it's a sigh of relief," girls coach Stacy Freda said after her team improved to 15-2-2. "These types of games could go 80 minutes and be a 0-0 game. It's nice to get one on the board and know that we can find a way to score and hope that the flood gates open up afterwards."
That's exactly what happened after sophomore forward Alexandra Doody scored the opening goal at the 9:10 mark of the first session off an assist from senior midfielder Samantha Zetlin.
Zetlin also scored a goal of her own on an assist from junior forward Stephanie Leonard at 15:39 of the second half to make the score 4-1. That came after the Flyers got an unassisted goal from senior defender Julie Stabile at the beginning of the second half, and sophomore forward Isabela De Souza scored in the 28th minute of the first half on an assist from Doody.
The final - and most exciting - score of the day came from senior reserve Kelly Power, who netted her first career goal in the game's final minutes. After finding an opening at midfield and giving the ball up to freshman Rebecca Rees, Power sprinted 50 yards to the net and put away Rees's cross that sailed in from the far left corner.
"I just finished it, she made a good cross," said Power, who returned to the team this fall after both her legs were broken on April 7, 2007 when she was hit by a drunk driver.
She got the game ball from Freda.
Both the boys and girls teams will host No. 13 seeds this week, with the girls playing Andover on either Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon and the boys meeting Everett early this week as well.
In the boys game, senior forward Aaron Kanarek scored the only goal of the game, his fifth of the season, at 27:16 of the second half. Kanarek credited junior midfielder Marlon Ramalho, who collected the assist, for keeping the ball to the outside before feeding the ball.
"Keeping the ball outside is our strength, I knew he was gonna dribble it outside," Kanarek said. "I got it on the 18, I and just said, 'Oh God don't mess up,' and I slotted it in the lower left corner. That gave us the momentum with 15 minutes left and I thought we were gonna come through."
Framingham coach Dan Avery said even though his squad bounced Medford from the tournament for the third straight year, he doesn't feel like they have their number.
"It's a knock-down, drag-out fight every time we play," he said. "We were sweating it out - they're a good team. They are a tough first-round draw. We've seen them so many times it's almost like they're in our league. You'd rather draw a team you don't know."
The Flyers (13-0-6), who practiced penalty kicks all week, were just glad Kanarek prevented them from having to use those freshly-honed skills.
"I'm a senior," Kanarek said. "It could've been my last game if it didn't go in."
Kanarek came out of the game after his goal and did not return. And while he was swarmed by his teammates' congratulations on the sideline, it wasn't long before he was humbled by Avery.
"Aaron, you got the winning goal," the coach shouted to his star of the day after addressing his team, "bring the water back in."
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