By BRIAN TORTELLA

Correspondent

On X @tortreports

VOORHEES — The Paul VI High girls soccer team found itself in unprecedented territory on Tuesday afternoon. The Eagles haven’t knocked off Olympic conference rival and traditional state power Eastern Regional since the 2011 season.

Eagles’ fifth-year coach Karen Anderson had that fact in the back of her mind prior to their 2-1 victory over the Vikings to kick off the 2024 season in style.

“That was a big statement for us to start our season off,” she said. “This has always been a challenge for us (playing Eastern), we’re always in the conference with them, we’ve been finishing in the top range but we’ve never really been able to get one of those (wins). Five years since I’ve taken over the program, they always give us a game, but we have not beaten them in five years. I don’t even remember the last time Paul VI has beaten Eastern.”

The answer?

Way back on Sept. 14, 2011, they edged the Vikings by the same score. Just 4,738 days ago, to be exact, according to records available from NJ Advance Media.

Fast forward to the present — Hunter Kintzing’s late-game heroics helped the Eagles end their drought and put them in prime position to compete for an Olympic Conference title. Tied at one with 1:54 remaining, the sophomore darted one into the net, which proved to be the final dagger.

“I just saw Danni (Hennessey) dribbling down the sideline and I saw a space in the 18,” Kintzing recalled. “I just ripped it.”

She not only ripped it into the net, but ripped any life the Vikings had left. 

“We haven’t beat Eastern in a really long time,” she continued, “and I think this year, this is going to be a great start to my season.”

She’s already tied the number of goals she had during her whole rookie campaign, and simple math proves that if she continues at this rate, she will, in fact, have a great season. 

“We’ve been shuffling Hunter around to a lot of attacking roles,” coach Anderson said of Kintzing. “I know she can finish, and I was just trying to put her in the right spot at the right time, and she found it.

“At halftime, I told them to maintain their composure. The team that essentially knocks that ball in the back of the net is going to be the one to take away the win.”

Bingo.

The Eagles (1-0, 0-0 Olympic National) actually “found” the goal plenty of times, out-performing Eastern with a staggering 17 shots on goal to just three for the Vikings (0-1, 0-0 Olympic American), but were just unable to capitalize. Junior Emma McCarthy, who tallied 80 goals for the Eagles’ lacrosse team in the spring, netted a score to tie the game up, 1-1, with 7:11 left in the first half. A little later, she left the game with an injury.

“Emma is a great athlete, she’s a first-team all-conference, second-team all-state player for us,” coach Anderson said. “Unfortunately, she got hurt on one of the crosses, but before that she was able to bury it in off of her chest. She’s an outright hard worker, so she deserves that one.” 

As for Eastern, the Vikings are also in somewhat of unprecedented times as they are now in a new building phase with a younger base of players. The most losses they’ve had in each of the last seven seasons is just three. 

“It sucks, obviously, because Eastern doesn’t really lose a lot, and that’s not really part of our reputation,” said senior Nevaeh Roark, who notched the game’s first and only goal for the Vikings in the second minute. “I was hoping to win because (PVI) was my old school. We have a young team. We need to get together more, because this is a completely new team. Once we do that (get together more) we will be fine. We need to learn from each other more, we have never played with each other, it’s a lot of younger kids, but I think we’ll be completely fine, I think we’ll be good.”

The lack of the traditional dominant performance that the Eastern girls soccer program usually brings didn’t surprise longtime Vikings coach Jamie McGroarty in the slightest, he said. 

“It’s not even rust,” he said. “We have so many new players, this is a rebuilding situation. Everybody thinks we are going to be so good every year and we lost half of our team. There’s no way we are a Top-20 team (statewide/Eastern came into the season ranked No. 20 by nj.com). We may be by the end of the year. I knew they (PVI) were going to be good. I got the scouting reports on them and they were exactly what they said they were going to be. We’re just so inexperienced at the varsity level that they don’t know how to make adjustments yet, so it’s going to take some time.”

“She hustles,” he continued, speaking of Roark. “We gave her the ‘Chick-Fil-A Player of the Game’ today because she just hustles. She worked hard, she was our best forward today with her effort.”

Araba Abanyie recorded 15 saves for Eastern (0-1).

WHAT’S NEXT: Eastern travels to Rancocas Valley on Thursday at 3:45 p.m. Paul VI hosts Cherry Hill West on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

Contact Brian Tortella: Btortreportssj@gmail.com