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Bronx Science floats to PSAL girls 'A' final
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Elizabeth Schaeffer knew that on a day like this, the weather was either going to be her team's friend or foe.
"It was hard to adjust to the wind today," the Bronx Science junior striker said. "It was really strong and it beat us up over time, but we had to play against it. We adjusted and we came back in the second half because we had the wind to our backs."
The Wolverines utilized their windy advantage to run away from Bayside, 6-1, in the PSAL Class A semifinals Friday at Grand Street Campus.
Fresh off a hard-fought overtime win against Long Island City, Bronx Science was primed to go against a Bayside team that gave them trouble in the first half.
Bayside's only goal came in the fourth minute when the city's leading scorer D.J. Glazer booted in a free kick from 30 yards away.
Undeterred, Bronx Science (14-0-0) answered with an unassisted goal from Nadine Penkovsky in the 20th minute to even things up a one a piece.
Despite having the wind to their backs, Bayside (12-1-2) couldn't utilize the gusty advantage. A little more than midway through the first half, the Wolverines began to assert their dominance, effectively maintaining ball possession for the rest of the game.
"In the last 15 minutes of the first half, I felt that we were dominating, just not putting the ball in the net," Bronx Science coach Annie Eckstein said. "I thought with the wind behind us in the second half that, that would change."
And change it did. Coming out of halftime, everything began to fall for the Wolverines. Freshman Gianna Finz found her way on the board in the 50th minute with a wind-aided corner kick assisted by Schaeffer that hooked into the net.
Schaeffer scored a pair of goals in a two-minute flurry not too long afterward. She put one in the 52nd minute with assist this time from Finz and sophomore Catherine Foy. Her second was an unassisted strike in the 54th minute.
The last two scores of the game were cherries on top of a victory as senior Phoebe Dawkins and junior Isabella Pecorari each scored with less than 20 minutes left.
Bronx Science will take on Beacon in Sunday's final at Randall's Island. The two teams met during the regular season with the Wolverines pulling out the non-league win.
"We're certainly ready for Beacon," Eckstein said.
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