Girls soccer: Princeton scrambling with loss of top scorer, Mariah Hobson

Mariah Hobson has scored more than 100 goals for the Princeton girls soccer team the past three seasons on the pitch.

The Tigresses must find someone else to do the scoring the rest of the season with Hobson lost with a season-ending knee injury on Monday.

On Thursday, the Tigresses couldn’t find anyone, shut out 7-0 for the second straight game, falling to Byron.

When asked who they will turn to now to score, Princeton coach David Gray said he wasn’t sure.

“Well, we don’t know. We don’t have an answer to that. That remains to be seen,” he said. “I’m hoping anywhere. If we can get a couple girls poke a few in... We’re going to have to find somebody to be a scorer.”

It didn’t help that the Tigresses (2-6) could only field 10 players and had to play a position down with sickness and Spring Break shortening their roster.

“We’re going to have to find somebody to be a scorer.”

—  David Gray

Princeton played to a 2-0 game at halftime, with Byron racking up five more goals in the second half.

“Proud of how hard the girls played tonight. It’s a lot to ask to play with 10 players. We held up for awhile and then we ran out of gas,” Gray said. “The girls did everything we asked them to do. At some point, it’s too much.”

Junior defender Anagrace Isaacson said the Tigresses did the best they could considering the circumstances.

“It’s definitely difficult, but at the end of the season we’ll be getting better,” she said. “We have a lot of new girls this year, with Mariah, Nora [Schneider] and EKC [Emma Kruse-Carter] out and some girls sick, there just was a lot of new on the team.

“I think it will be a learning season and definitely next season it will be an improvement with more experience and working with each other. The team chemistry is pretty good, but there’s still a lot to improve.”

Jayden Sims, a 5-foot junior who hasn’t played keeper since her youth soccer days, filled in for injured starter Maddie Oertel on goal again Thursday.

“Jayden did really good on goal today. She played that a long time ago. I give her a lot of credit for doing it. I couldn’t do it,” Isaacson said.

Hobson, who fell just one goal short of tying Jasmine Kunkel’s all-time school record of 106 goals, is one of three starters fallen by a knee injury.

Sophomore Nora Schneider was injured in the offseason, and senior Emma Kruse-Carter went down in a recent practice.

“It’s not only the loss of players, but it’s the quality of players,” Gray said.

Gray said you have to be honest with the team, “because everybody knows it’s going to be hard. When the ones who are on vacation and sick are back, it’s still going to be hard without Mariah, Nora and EKC.

“We just have got to keep playing and tell them to have fun. We’ll learn as much as we can. I think that’s what the message is going to be. And we’re going to improve and get better.”

Gray said reinforcements would return for Friday’s home match with Monmouth-Roseville.