High School: Top-ranked Good Counsel girls return talented team
With his 25th regular season just days away, Good Counsel girls soccer head coach Jim Bruno knew his team was ready to go.
“It’s really amazing how hard they’ve been working,” Bruno said. “They’re outworking even last year’s group.”
It’s hardly a slight to last year’s edition of the Falcons — a squad that won its first 19 games and shot up the national rankings before falling in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference semifinals — to compare the teams. Good Counsel’s starting lineup last fall usually included no seniors, and the team’s top 11 players — including reigning All-Met Player of the Year Margaret “Midge” Purce — return this season.
Although Purce, a speedy senior forward with 74 goals in three seasons, will miss about a month of the season while she represents the U.S. in the U-17 World Cup, the top-ranked Falcons enter the season as the clear team to beat in the region and on the short list of top squads in the country.
Purce and Good Counsel will kick off their season today as they take on national power Pennington (N.J.).
