FARMINGTON –- The Farmington High girls soccer team opened its season with 13 straight wins.
Then the River Hawks hit a couple of speed bumps – losing two games, one to last year’s Class M champion, Lewis Mills, and the next to Simsbury, the 2023 Class L champion. They won their last game of the regular season, avenged the loss to Lewis Mills in the CCC tournament quarterfinals but lost to Simsbury again in the CCC semifinals.
That was 10 days ago. Farmington took what it learned about itself in the last game and the other losses and worked on that in the interim. The River Hawks, top seed in Class LL, opened the tournament with a 4-0 win over Enfield in a second-round game Tuesday at Tunxis Mead Park.
Freshman Kayleigh Phillips scored two goals on her birthday and senior Sia Sherma and sophomore Liana Heredia added one each for Farmington (16-3). The River Hawks will play No. 8 New Canaan, a 1-0 winner over last year’s Class LL runner-up, St. Joseph, on Friday at 4 p.m. at Tunxis Mead.
Farmington has 15 seniors but lost some key players to graduation last year.
“Going into (the season) we lost a lot of starters from last year,” Sharma said. “We were just focused on doing what we could and we had that really long win streak. That was really good for our confidence. It brought it up. We had underclassmen who picked it up and filled those roles.”
The streak came to a halt on Oct. 14 with the 2-1 loss to Lewis Mills. Three days later, Farmington lost to Simsbury 4-0.
“The losses were unfortunate, but they really helped us going into the postseason,” Sharma said. “It was helpful not to have that perfect streak. We found out what we needed to work on. We got it out of our system.”
Farmington lost in the Class LL quarterfinals to Ridgefield last year in overtime.
“We’re hoping to make it far this year,” Sharma said.
Coach Chris Lepak said his team doesn’t have a star and that’s worked out well this season.
“We’re a team by committee,” he said. “Our stats are very evenly spread. Our defense is sound and our goalkeeping is excellent.”