By Bob Nuse
Sports Editor
Don’t expect the Princeton Day School girls’ soccer team to ever get tired of winning championships.
The Panthers made it six straight years with a title as they captured their fifth straight state Prep B championship which followed winning the Mercer County Tournament crown in 2013.
“We’re on a nice little roll,” said PDS coach Pat Trombetta, whose team defeated Montclair Kimberley Academy, 4-2, on Oct. 31 to claim the Prep B title. “These last three graduating senior classes have won a championship each year they are in school, which is nice.”
After sharing the Prep B title with MKA the past two seasons, the Panthers have this one all to themselves thanks to a big offensive day. Senior Brooke Smukler scored a pair of goals for the Panthers, while Jules Romano and Ariana Jones added single tallies in the win. The game was much higher scoring than the previous three finals matchups between the teams. PDS won, 1-0, in overtime in 2015, while they had played to scoreless ties each of the last two seasons.
“It was a freaky game,” Trombetta said. “Both teams only lost a couple of players from the prior year so we were expecting another low-scoring game. With Jules scoring with 20 minutes left in half and then Brooke’s first goal put us up 2-0. So they had to chase the game a little. They had only allowed seven or eight goals all season, so for us to score two in the first half was the most they had given up all year.
“It felt great for Brooke. She was out for a while with an illness and came back for this game and played great. She missed almost three weeks and she made it back for the last game which was nice.”
Smukler’s second goal gave the Panthers a 3-0 lead and Jones made it 4-0 before MKA scored twice in the final 18 minutes.
“We were expecting a good game and it turned out to go our way,” said Jones, a junior who led the Panthers in goals with 10 this season. “We put a lot of work into the season. It was really exciting.
“This year we had just lost our big center back (Madi Coyne) and that was rough going into the year. I think everyone as a whole felt we needed to fill those shoes and I know Kelsey (Lane) stepped up in the back and took that position. If we didn’t have her it would not have gone the way it did. We knew we had to play as a team and do it for each other. In the beginning of the season we set a goal to win a championship and we did it.”
After six straight years of championships, Jones and the rest of the returning Panthers will have the goal in mind of making it seven straight years.
“I think it has been a big thing the past couple years with the seniors coming through that you don’t want to be the team to have the streak end,” Jones said. “We don’t want to be the year the streak ends so it will be a goal to get a championship, either MCT or prep next year I want to come up with four.”
PDS finished the season 14-4-1, reaching the semifinals of the MCT before winning the Prep B.
“We set the tone early in the preseason that this is one of our goals, let’s not be the team that ends the streak,” Trombetta said. “This team worked hard all season and we beat a really good team to win Prep B. They are the No. 1 seed North Jersey Non-Public B and they play a strong schedule. I think our schedule this year helped us come tournament time. We made it more competitive with Pingry and Springside-Chestnut Hill.
“We’re excited and we also know we have a good core of players coming back. We are looking forward to next year. We hope to continue progressing.”
Jones will be one of those players returning next year that will be counted on to help the Panthers win another title. She’s been playing a much bigger role on offense for the Panthers as a forward. She plays in the center midfield for her club team, South Jersey Elite Baron Rush.
“I know for me, switching to playing forward last two years has been different than what I am used to,” Jones said. “It’s nice to switch it up and expand my knowledge of the game and know what to do in different situations. Brooke is a natural forward and did a great job of putting the ball in the net. And Jules has also been playing so well.
“It was a good game for us and everybody worked hard for it. Every season we come in knowing this could be the end of the streak. But we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.”
