'We're a new team this year': Upsets have proven North Quincy girls soccer is for real

QUINCY - First-year coach Joe Kayser said that when he chats with his North Quincy High girls soccer team this season, a popular topic of conversation is "that learning-how-to-win thing."

The Raiders appear to be getting better at that.

After suffering three one-goal losses over the past three weeks, the Raiders broke through on Thursday and scored their second major upset of the season. First-half goals from Harper Mergel and Jacqueline Manning, combined with some superb second-half work by goalkeeper Sophia Edwards, forged a 2-1 win over Whitman-Hanson at Creedon Field.

North Quincy, which won nine games total from 2021-23, improved to 4-4. The Raiders made a big opening statement in their second game of the season, upsetting mighty Hingham, also by a 2-1 score. Knocking off Whitman-Hanson, the Division 2 state champs just three years ago, is further proof that NQ, which has only one senior starter, is hardly a pushover anymore.

"I think it says that despite the past, we're a new team this year," said center back Hannah Moriarty, the Raiders' lone senior starter. "And we're coming to play. We're going to try our best every single game. And we're competing this year, 100 percent."

"It feels so great to feel formidable," said Edwards, a junior. "When we're walking on the field and the other team sees us, they know that they have some competition."

Edwards and Moriarty saved the day in the second half. North Quincy came out very strong to start the game, bottling up Whitman-Hanson (3-3-1) in the midfield and dispatching the threat any time the Panthers broke into the attacking third.

Mergel, a junior who has switched from defense to forward this season, put the hosts up 1-0 with a near-post flick of a corner kick 14 minutes into the game. Manning made it 2-0 when she curled in a shot from the right wing for her team-leading seventh goal of the season just three minutes later.

"I don't feel like we showed up for the first 25 minutes," Whitman-Hanson coach David Floeck said. "... We came out flat, and good teams make you pay (for that)."

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The Panthers regrouped at halftime, though, and dominated possession over the final 40 minutes, finally breaking through on a Gabrielle Amado goal with 21 minutes remaining. North Quincy held on as Edwards made two fine saves, elevating each time to steer a pair of shots over the crossbar. She also left her feet in the first half to make a leaping stop against Panthers leading scorer Elizabeth Kowlski (7 goals on the season).

"That's my favorite part -- when I get to sail in the air," Edwards said.

"One of the best athletes I've ever seen," Kayser, a former Archbishop Williams assistant, said of his keeper. "She makes the easy (saves) but she also makes the big ones when we need it. And she certainly did that in the second half. We don't win without her tonight."

The Raiders also wouldn't have won without Moriarty, who bailed out Edwards eight minutes into the second half with a goal-line clearance. Moriarty, Edwards and a Whitman-Hanson forward all charged after a through ball at the top of the box. All three players got in each other's way, and the ball rolled past all of them and was headed for the goal line before Moriarty adjusted course and made a sliding, sweeping clear inside the 6-yard box.

"Very rarely does (the ball) get past Sophia," Moriarty said, "but I always make an effort to support my teammates. When I saw it go past her, I kind of blacked out and sprinted toward it and made any effort I could to kick it to the sideline."

"Hannah Moriarty is my savior. I'm so grateful," Edwards said. "When that ball was rolling back (toward goal) I just stopped because I was like, 'Oh, Hannah's got that.'"

So far this fall, North Quincy has got all the answers to the questions that plagued the program in 2021 (3-13-1 record), 2022 (4-13-1) and 2023 (2-11-5).

"He's doing a good job with them," Floeck said of the impact that Kayser, a 43-year-old New York native, has had with NQ. "They've got some players who are dangerous. They're doing things the right way. They're competing with everybody."

The Raiders have three big Patriot League games this coming week, visiting Plymouth South on Monday, hosting Plymouth North on Wednesday and Scituate on Friday. They followed up their first big upset win (over Hingham) by dropping the next three, so Kayser would like to see his players keep the momentum going this time.

And make no mistake, North Quincy has plenty of momentum now.

"When we called the timeout with about 10 minutes left, we talked about how these were going to be the most important minutes of our season because we have to learn how to win," Kayser said. "(Whitman-Hanson) kept coming at us and we figured out a way to win, and that's a big step for us."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: 'We're a new team this year': Upsets have proven North Quincy girls soccer is for real