Oct. 9, 2014 Girls Soccer Not only was it Senior Day for Nottingham today, but the Stars also showed their colors in battling cancer by donning pink shirts for the game with Princeton (Photo courtesy Elyse Diamond's twitter page). Dorner helps lead the youth brigade in Spartans win over WW-P South By Rich Fisher Fish4scores.com Oct. 9: What better way to improve a young team than to make it even . . . younger? OK, it sounds crazy, but in the case of the Steinert girls’ soccer team, it may just have some merit. The Spartans started the season with eight sophomores and two freshmen on the roster. Two weeks into the campaign, the varsity did JV coach Christie “Fish” Fink no favors by pulling freshman Tatiana Dorner up to varsity. Dorner showed just how she can impact a game today, scoring a goal and causing chaos in the final third as Steinert took a 3-1 win over visiting West Windsor-Plainsboro South. It was definitely a day for the kids to excel, as freshmen Gianna Pittaro and Dorner scored the first two goals and sophomore Cassidy Wood put the game away late with a pretty score. “We know we’ll have a good future with (the freshmen) on the team,” Wood said. “We have a lot of young players that can really play,” coach Mike “Stinger” Hastings added. “That’s exciting for me going forward. That’s just what we’re looking at, we’re looking at down the line. “This year is I still think we can make a good run in the county tournament and state tournament if we keep progressing and keep getting better.” In what can either be considered a masterful stroke of coaching or just dumb luck, Hastings and assistant Lisa “Hollywood” Pittaro decided to push Wood up from sweeper to forward and drop Pittaro’s daughter Gianna back to sweeper. So what happens? In the 11th minute Kyle Kieffer lofted a perfect corner kick that Pittaro headed in to make it 1-0. Later in the half, the uber-fast Dorner entered and things got ramped up. “That definitely changed things for us,” WWPS coach Allysa Teeter said. “Defensively it gave us a little bit of a run there.” With under five minutes left, Dorner Gianna Piattaro, who scored Steinert's first goal today, splits the coverage of WW-P South's Garbriela Portilla (11) and Melanie Doren (Photo by Greg used her speed to dribble away Slaboda). from defenders and, as goalie Julia Koepp came out, she dribbled by her and shot it into the open goal. Later in the game, Dorner hit the post and hit the crossbar as the Pirates could not track her. “She helps a lot,” Wood said. “She’s able to get the ball and make plays with it. I think it opens things up.” Hastings agreed, noting that just with sheer ability and little experience, Dorner is able to change a game’s tempo. “She’s raw, she’s so athletic and she’s starting to find the game in practice,” Hastings said. “She’s a great kid, she works hard, and you can’t teach speed. She’s lightning fast. “With her speed, you just saw her running by people and a lot of girls started seeing that ‘Oh, I can play a ball over the top and get her in constantly.’ She was creating so much havoc back there and we kind of fed off of that. You could kind of see it. She brought some energy to us today, which is kind of what we needed.” Dorner’s first love is basketball but her skills in soccer have not gone unnoticed. She plays travel for Jersey Elite Training (JET), which already gave her experience playing against older competition. “When I played for JET they asked me to play with the 18 year olds and I was the only one who scored,” she said. “Some college coaches were looking at me while I was playing there. So I thought this year with Steinert I might be good after playing with the 18 year olds. “I feel comfortable. I wasn’t surprised (about getting called up). In my JV games I was scoring a lot of goals.” In the second half, WWPS cut the lead in half on a goal by Eliana Hughes. Dorner picked up the tempo again and nearly scored on another great individual play before putting it off the crossbar. Brittany Woodruff was right there to slam the rebound but Koepp made a diving save to rob her. Wood finally gave the Spartans some breathing room with an eye-opening goal in which she dribbled through two defenders then turned on the burners before blasting it into the back of the net. It was a needed goal and a needed win coming off a 1-0 loss to Ewing. “We were rushing things and we weren’t relaxed, so it was nice to get that goal,” Wood said. “And it was an important win. We get our confidence back and get back on a winning roll.” However the Spartans roll, they will do so with Wood remaining up front and Pittaro in the back. “Cassidy is just so athletic,” Hastings said. “She plays basketball, softball. We put her up there earlier, we watched her and I think that’s where we’re gonna kind of have her now. We’re gonna make that switch with G and Cassidy. “We were talking about switching some people around, we made that switch today, because Cassidy can play anywhere. She’s that talented. It kind of made me look good when she scored.” And that, folks, is no easy feat. Nottingham has tough Senior Day against Princeton Nottingham honored its seniors and played in pink today, but visiting Princeton made the Northstars blue with a 7-1 victory. Toni Francobandiero had the Northstars goal with an assist from Julissa Vasquez. Princeton got two goals each from Serena DiBianco and Taylor Lis. It was Senior Day for Nottingham, which also wore pink shirts in order to support the battle against breast cancer. Princeton raised its record to 7-4-1and the Northstars fell to 3-9. Follow Rich Fisher on twitter @fish4scores Nottingham Seniors Kelsey Ignace (left) and Lindsay Argiriou were honored by their teammates and coaches today.