Coming off a season 19-3-1 season last year, the Cinnaminson Girls Soccer team is off to another fast start this season, with an overall record of 11-1-1, and are yet to be defeated within their division, with a record of 8-0-1.

In fact, the last time the girls lost a game was September 9, with a final score of 3-2 to Group 4 foe Kingsway. Since that loss, the girls have been on a 10-0-1 tear, with that tie coming against a strong Group 4 Rancocas Valley (9-4-2; 4-1-1 Divisional) squad.  The girls have been so dominant that they are ranked third in the state by NJ.com among all Group 2 teams and third in the South Jersey coach’s poll among teams of all sizes.    

While underclassmen, such as junior Julianna Bastos, sophomore Emma Karch, and junior goalie Maddie Ogden have been making their mark in the league, the seniors have been a majority of the team this season. The team has been led by Division 1-bound Hailey Gutowski, Christine Bescript, who committed to Division 2 Millersville recently, and Jamie McHugh, who will be attending Arcadia in the fall of 2018.  

Gutowski, who will be attending Saint Joseph’s University in the fall of 2018, is having her best season yet. She claimed the starting job in her junior year, and hasn’t stopped scoring since. She has 12 goals and six assists with about four games remaining in the regular season. When asked about how she feels about the season so far, Hailey said “I think we’ve been doing really well so far. We work really well together and our chemistry is really good, and overall it’s been a really good season.”  

Head Coach Mr. Digney is very pleased with the hot start of the team, but thinks that the team can improve in a few ways.

“We’re off to a great start. I can’t be any more pleased than I am now. But we know it’s not where we start, it’s where we finish. So, we just continue to try to get better every day and hopefully by the time the playoffs roll around we’ll be playing our best soccer…We got to do a better job with a lot of the little things. We’re still missing some goals that we need to score. We had one or two games where we gave up, what I thought, were really weak goals. So we just need to clean that up, the little mistakes, so it doesn’t cost us,” Coach Digney said. 

Even Coach Digney would say that the veteran presence on the team is key to their success.

“Just the extra year of maturity is important. I mean, we have a veteran group here of a lot of juniors and seniors. That extra year of being together and working hard, I think, is really benefiting us this year,” Coach Digney said 

Last year, the team went all the way to the South Jersey Group 2 Finals before being knocked out by Haddonfield in a tight 1-0 game. While the competition in Group 2 again revolves around 11-1-1 Haddonfield, who defeated the Lady Pirates twice last season, Gutowski discussed their chances at winning states.

“I mean, we have a lot of competition in the playoffs. It’s always more competitive than the teams around us. I know we’ll do really well in playoffs as long as we play to the level we’re capable of,” Hailey said.  

The team has a key game tonight at home against Rancocas Valley for the girl’s senior night before hosting Egg Harbor Township in the first round of the South Jersey Coach’s Tournament on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. Burlington Township awaits a rematch on October 23 before Delran gets its opportunity on October 25.