Colonial Liberty is highly competitive in South Jersey Girls’ Soccer

In the first few weeks of the South Jersey girls’ soccer season, one thing is clearly evident – the Colonial Conference Liberty Division is among the most competitive small-school conferences in the area.

The Colonial Liberty consists of six teams. The four in Group 2 this year are Haddonfield, Sterling, Haddon Heights and West Deptford. The Group 1 schools are Haddon Township and Audubon.

The teams play each other twice this regular season, 10 division games total.

While it may sound like a cliché, there are no easy games in the Liberty Division.

Early on, it has been Sterling, led by second-year coach Jim Kay that has been leading the field. The Silver Knights began the week 5-0, including 4-0 in the Liberty.

Sterling has been successful with a great combination of youth and experience. The Silver Knights’ leading goal scorer is senior Faith Dickson, who began the week with three scores. The assist leader is freshman Ireland Kay with five. In between there have been plenty of key contributors.

Included in the wins is a 1-0 win defending division and sectional champion Haddonfield on a goal by Lily Burt.

Haddonfield is a good example of how difficult this division is. The Bulldogs opened with 2-1 victory over Haddon Township in a game matching defending South Jersey champions.

Then came a 2-1 loss to Eastern, which is ranked No. 1 in the state by NJ.com.

After that were two more one-goal losses to West Deptford and Sterling.

So Lori Quintavale’s Haddonfield team has shown that it can be competitive with anybody in South Jersey, and yet the Bulldogs started the season 1-3.

One has to think that Haddonfield will reverse course.

Haddon Heights is already a team that has seen a huge momentum swing. After opening with a 4-3 loss to Sterling and a 2-1 non-conference defeat to Cinnaminson, Haddon Heights then won three in a row, defeating Haddon Township and West Deptford by a goal and earning a 2-0 victory over Audubon.

Senior Maggie Campbell has led the way with four goals in the first five games for the Garnets.

How close are things?

West Deptford won three of its first four division games. The Eagles played three one-goal contests, a 2-1 win over Haddonfield and 3-2 victory against Haddon Townshp sandwiched around a 3-2 loss to Haddon Heights.

To show the strength in the Liberty, Haddons Townshp should be competitive in South Jersey Group 1, even though the Hawks began the week without a division win. The final team is Audubon, which has struggled to score, but in other divisions would be much more competitive.

Three of Haddon Township’s division losses were by one goal. The Hawks have had some key injuries, but have been led by junior midfielder Sara Wiedeman, who recently made a verbal commitment to attend Wagner.

The way most of the Liberty schedules are set up is that the first round of division games should be completed for most teams by this week and then a second round begins around the second week of October.

Winning this division will be a true test of talent and endurance.

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Author: Marc Narducci