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Warhawks go deep
Madison girls soccer coach Kurt Kuykendall wants to pound the ball between the tackles and draw the opponent's strong safety toward the line of scrimmage, allowing him to eventually call for a deep seam route over the misplaced defender for a touchdown.Or something like that.
After his team suffered its only set of back-to-back losses this season, Kuykendall deployed this football-like strategy on the soccer field.
He's able to entice the opponent's offense into his team's defensive zone, creating space between the opposing team's back line and its goal.
Madison scored on a pair of free kicks in a 2-1 win over Langley on April 29, and suddenly the Warhawks found themselves with a winning recipe.
But what exactly were the ingredients?
"What we did, we took our team shape, which means where we place our team, and we moved it back toward our own goal," said Kuykendall, whose most recent success with this strategy resulted in a 3-2 win over McLean in the Liberty District tournament final. "You can say that we set up defensively low against our own goal on purpose, and that'd be comparable to running the ball in order to set up the long bomb."
Madison improved to 10-5 on the season, and the Warhawks played host to Lee Tuesday in the first round of the Northern Region tournament, which ended after The Times went to press.
Though it's unclear who Madison's strong-armed quarterback may be, there's little doubt as to who's catching the touchdown passes. An admitted fan of the Green Bay Packers, senior forward Sara Diggs finished two breakaways during the McLean win, finding large amounts of open grass that were once occupied by McLean's back line.
"Coach Kuykendall really wants me to make the runs," said Diggs, who'll attend the University of Virginia in the fall. "We're working as a counterattack team and we just settle in, hoping that we end up with more goals than they do."
Added Kuykendall, "It's because of [Diggs'] pace and skill that we're able to play this way."
So far the strategy has worked. After suffering a 2-1 loss at Stone Bridge in the final game of the regular season, Madison entered the Liberty tournament as the No. 3 seed. The Warhawks posted a 1-0 win over Langley before avenging their earlier loss to Stone Bridge with a 2-0 win in the semifinals.
After Diggs' first tally in the 14th minute of the district final, senior forward Blake Krejci finished another odd-man rush in the game's 28th minute for a 2-0 lead.
Although freshman midfielder Andie Romness answered with her fourth goal of the season in the 33rd minute, Diggs finished a breakaway early in the second half to pull ahead for good.
"The biggest difference was that they capitalized on their opportunities," said McLean coach Laura Wilson, whose team dropped to 8-5-3 and traveled to South County Tuesday in the first round of the Northern Region tournament, which ended after The Times went to press. "[Kuykendall] tried to stick a lot of people in the midfield and he was very patient. He had a game plan, stuck to it, and it worked."
But Wilson's Highlanders have had a game plan of their own. McLean hadn't suffered a loss since the middle of April, jelling together at the absolute perfect time.
"Our players in the back half of our season finally came together and started playing as a team," said Wilson, who watched junior Caity Flint score McLean's second goal in the 62nd minute. "When all the chemistry mixed, for a long time there we were unbeatable."
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