The Northampton girls soccer team kicked off their 2024 season Friday afternoon with a solid 2-0 win against Moravian Academy. Junior Saige Korpics tallied both goals for the K-Kids as they took out the 6-time defending District XI class A champions. The Lions were a state semifinalist last year.

The game featured two of the area’s top goalkeepers in the Kids’ Emma Fry, the reigning EPC 1st team goalie, and Moravian’s Addison Etter, a Brown University commit.

Against a lesser opponent, the K-Kids would have racked up twice as many goals as they dominated both possession and pressure in both halves. Fry’s workload in the Northampton goal had less volume, but the senior came up with two huge saves in key moments.

She made a leaping save to her left to deny an opening goal by Moravian just 6 minutes into the contest. Midway through the second half, she punched an on-target shot over the crossbar, preserving what was at the time a narrow 1-0 lead.

After a scoreless first half, Korpics headed home a ball that was bounding across the field in front of the Lions’ goal to break the deadlock at the 33:50 mark. She iced the game with a goal inside the far post off an Olivia Abrachinsky corner with 2:40 left in the contest.

Korpics described her goals, “I always head the ball, so as soon as it bounces the first thing I think of is, “Use my head.” As long as it bounces it can go anywhere and I was just trying to get it on goal. On the second goal, I’m always positioned on the far post. I just watched the ball in, put my foot on it and the end result was a goal. I don’t usually score a lot of goals, but we worked really well together today.”

Abrachinsky explained the anticipation of the season for the 13 seniors on the team, “It definitely brings a lot of excitement and energy to our team. All of the seniors really want to go after a district championship this year. We want to give a 100% and really push because it is our last season together.”

Head coach Michael Missmer assessed the game 1 performance of his squad, “I knew they (Moravian) were a really tough side, especially this year. They’ve got two Division 1 players. They’ve got a couple girls who are lights-out good. It’s always a dogfight with them. I felt that this year they had leveled up quite a bit and this was a good test for us because I feel we have as well. We controlled the tempo, we dictated how the game went, and we had a million chances. We need to finish more often, but if we generate twice as many chances, we’re going to get the result we want.”

The team plays Pocono Mountain East this afternoon which will serve as a tune up for an important early-season clash with Allentown Central Catholic at Cedar Crest College on Tuesday. A victory over the Vikettes would be a signature win for the program on its quest to become one of the Lehigh Valley’s elites.