The Wright Stuff

MARLBOROUGH – After making a free kick fifty-three yards away from her goal, Sutton keeper Katie Wright was caught way out of position. She was in trouble. Top-seeded Monson intercepted her kick and sent a long through ball quickly down the field to their talented freshman forward, Tennessee Murphy, on a breakaway.

At a crucial point in a tied semifinals state tournament game, Murphy, who has 53 goals on the season, had a step on freshman defender Molly Jenkins. When

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Murphy collected the ball about forty yards away from the wide-open Sutton net, she seemingly had the sure go-ahead goal for the Mustangs at her feet.

However, Wright never quit on the play. She sprinted back and positioned herself at the top of the box about eight yards to the right of the breaking Murphy, who booted the ball with her left foot. Wright sprung like an Australian red kangaroo, with her arms and hands out front, and deflected the ball out of harm’s way. The astonished Murphy could only shake her head as the ball trickled harmlessly out of bounds.

Wright’s unbelievable save may have been the most memorable of her two dozen against Monson on Tuesday night. She was by-far the best player on the field in a game with many talented athletes. Her will and determination was the key to Sutton’s unthinkable 2-1 upset victory over the

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undefeated, then 22-0, Mustangs. She was nothing short of amazing!

“Katie Wright, she was massive, big time,” Sutton head coach Jensen Shipp said following the game. “It might surprise people seeing a performance like that or

people who watch the video and they’re gonna be surprised about a goalkeeper making that many saves. We all know she’s fully capable of it.

“They are a phenomenal team,” he said about the Mustangs. “That’s the best team we’ve played against in terms of moving the ball, keeping possession, movement off the ball, trying to get runners, and trying to play passes that split our backs. Again, an absolutely phenomenal team. But, at the end of the day, you got to score more points than the other team and we did that.”

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Katie Wright control. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

After Sutton went down 1-0 just two minutes into the game on a Murphy goal, Wright got locked in. “After the first goal and based on how good this team is that we were facing, I just had to get into my head that I couldn’t let anymore in,” Wright said following the game. “So, I kept repeating to myself, ‘nothing! Nothing!’ I forgot what it’s called but it’s imagining in your head before a game or even during a game saying, ‘I believe my team can do it. I believe I can make that save.’ I just feel like that’s the mentality that everyone on our team had in this game. I wasn’t going to let another one in no matter what.”

Wright’s efforts paid off when the Suzies tied the score with just over nine minutes left in the first half when junior midfielder Caroline Howe worked a give-and-go with freshman forward Anna Joseph. After Howe got the return pass in the center of the field at the top of the Monson box, Howe spotted freshman striker Addy Jerome open toward the right and sent Jerome the pass. “I was calm,” Jerome said. “I was kind of at the side of the eighteen and I slid the ball to the back post, right on the front pole and it went in. It dinged it.”

Jerome’s second goal came after several of Wright’s highlight-reel saves as the Mustangs’ remained relentless on offense. They peppered Wright with shot-after-

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shot for nineteen straight minutes at one point in the second, including a series of saves while on the ground off corner kicks at both the thirty-minute and thirty-five-minute marks of the second half.

But Wright held the Mustang’s off just long enough for her teammates to capitalize on a breakaway of their own with about five minutes left in regulation. Joseph chased a through ball down to the Monson left corner goal line. She then made a perfect cross, past the diving feet of Monson sophomore defender Aniah Myrie, to an open Jerome ten yards in front of freshman goalkeeper Emily Provost. Jerome then one-timed the ball into the lower far-right corner of the Mustang net.

“Thank goodness for Katie Wright!” Jerome said. “I think someone slid a high airborne through ball to Anna. She chased it down to the goal line and she slotted it through to me … and I just one-touched it with my back foot. It was really exciting ‘cause it was in the final four minutes. I was stunned at first. I think everyone was stunned. I was just like, ‘what happened?’ And then we realized we just scored … It was kind of like a weird celebration, almost like, ‘Oh my God, that just happened!”

Freshman striker Addy Jerome, who scored two goals for the Suzies. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

Jerome’s second goal proved to be the game-winner. “We call her Big Goal Jerome,” said Shipp. “And Anna had a superb game last game. Just for freshmen to go take over a tournament like this, we’re all very proud of them. And we talked about in the second half … we’re going to get peppered, but they’re going to give us a couple of chances, too, and we took advantage of that.”

Wright said “we kept fighting. So, I’m really, really proud of these girls. They’re making this like the best senior year ever.”

“We just beat this undefeated team,” Jerome said. “It feels really nice.”

After the game, Monson head coach Eric Degnan came over to Wright behind the Sutton bench to congratulate the

Frshman Anna Joseph assisted on the game-winner. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

winning goalkeeper. “You are, hands-down, the best keeper I’ve ever seen,” he said as he extended his right palm to shake Wright’s hand.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Wright said humbly.

“I’m gonna have nightmares about you,” Degnan said smiling.

“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head.

“Good luck to you next year,” he said as he turned to walk away.

“Thank you!”

Wright stood quietly beaming for a moment, thinking about Degnan’s kind words. “I mean, like, I always have the greatest respect for our rivals and our opponents and just to be recognized by them is really gratifying,” she said, still beaming.

Wright said her teammates told her that goalkeeper is a “scary” position. “There’s so much pressure, but being a goalkeeper is all mental,” she said. “So, I feel like mental toughness is a really important part of it. Just staying focused and keeping the team together in the end.

Moving forward, the fourth-ranked Suzies now have one more game to play. They await the winner of Carver (15) and Palmer (3), who play at Walpole High School tonight at 7 p.m.

“We are on this high right now,” Wright said. “But I think we’ve done a really good job humbling ourselves to get the work done and focusing on practice and what we need to do to win. We need to match each other’s energies. During our huddles on the field, I’m always like hundred percent energy, hundred percent intensity and I think that’s the most important part of the game … I am so proud of this team right now. At the beginning of the year, we were still figuring out each other’s chemistry and I feel like we’ve just really meshed really well as a team. And again, I keep emphasizing, we just don’t feel like there’s any cliques or groups in our team. Everyone is just together and it’s just a really great feeling to win as a team.”