The first time the Holy Cross and Wolcott girls soccer teams met, the match ended in a 2-2 tie.
That was on Friday, Sept. 16 at Holy Cross High School.
The Eagles hosted the Crusaders on Thursday evening on the turf of Joe Monroe Field, and guess what happened? A tie.
Wolcott and Holy Cross both tallied first half goals, but neither side could get the winner and ended in a 1-1 tie. Both squads are still undefeated in the Naugatuck Valley League. The Eagles are 4-0-3 in the league while the Crusaders are 3-0-3.
Wolcott, led by head coach Chris Riviezzo, has a team led by five seniors — Cynthia Dias, Sarah Begley, Kayla Mayo, Meghan Doubleday and Alexis Mulhall. Dias was the goalkeeper on Thursday, and Mayo had the Eagle goal.
Holy Cross, led by Phil Mongelluzzo, has six seniors on its roster — Julia Sheetz, Michelina Gagliardi, Hayley Gilmore, Katherine Flaherty, Meghan Villano and Emma Gargano. Flaherty was the goalkeeper for the Crusaders, who got their goal from Adelisse Padilla off a redirection of a Gilmore direct kick.
As pointed out by Joe Palladino of the Waterbury Republican-American, Holy Cross was down three starters Thursday, and two of them are gone for the season. Down that many starters, the Crusaders showed a tremendous amount of fight on the road to salvage a tie and remain unbeaten in the league.
With the regular season matches gone, the only way Wolcott and Holy Cross can determine who is the better team head-to-head would be in the NVL Tournament. That would be the last time the teams could meet, given that the Eagles are in Class M and the Crusaders reside in Class S.