When Westbrook’s Heather Niehoff scored late in the second half of last Friday’s girls’ soccer game against Thornton Academy it looked like coach Vince Aceto’s halftime formation adjustment from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 was paying off. The Blue Blazes, down by two goals in the first half, now trailed by just one with five minutes to go in the game.

The Trojans had twin power on their side though, and there’s just no way to defend that. Thornton forward Jenny Pierpont set up her sister, Katie, in the 80th minute to lift the Trojans to a 4-2 win.

“We had that the whole game,” said Jenny. “I’ll always kick it and she’s not quite there or she overruns it or it bounces over her. But I guess it’s a twin thing because I always know when she’s there.”

Jenny served a picture-perfect cross from the left wing to the far post where Katie volleyed the ball past Westbrook goalie Shannon Northrop.

The Blue Blazes didn’t have time to counter that final goal, but still, Aceto was proud of the way they rebounded after making the adjustments at halftime.

“With the girls down two goals, if they had wanted to just give up and just go back in the second half and be complacent (they could have), but they showed their commitment and desire to win and that shows a lot about them,” he said.

The Trojans went up 1-0 at 14:02 of the first half, when Alice McAvoy lofted a corner kick from the far left flag up and over everyone – her teammates, the defenders and Northrop – into the right side netter. Twenty minutes later, McAvoy helped set up goal No. 2 for TA. This time, she crossed a corner kick into the box from the right flag. The ball pinballed around the box before deflecting off of Jenny Pierpont’s face and into the goal.

The Blue Blazes came out blazing and made good on their third corner kick of the half 12:46 in. Allie Aceto served the ball into the box and Emily Wight buried it into the corner of the net.

“We came in and we knew what we had to do. We stepped up and we didn’t give up,” said Northrop, a senior captain. “We have a very fast offense so we just kept feeding it to the middle and bringing it down and eventually we got those two goals.

Pierpont countered with TA’s third, however, before Westbrook could get its second. She used her state-champion sprinting speed to burn down the left sidelines. Once she had the last line of defense past her, Pierpont sent one sailing toward the far post. The ball arced up and over Northrop into the goal.

Niehoff made it 3-2 at the 34:57 mark of the second when she blasted the ball over TA goalie Kayla Nielsen from 30 yards out. Neilsen jumped toward the crossbar and got a hand on the ball, but the shot still carried into the netting.

The goal wasn’t enough though, and the twin power provided the difference.

“You can’t beat it when twins pass to each other and score,” said TA coach Jami Foshay. “One of them just said, ‘I was testing out my twin psychic ability.’

“I think this brought up our confidence a little bit. We’ve been playing well all season, but we’d go from having a really good game to a really bad game. We just needed a good win other than last week just to get us going.”

Aceto was looking for the same. Unfortunately the rally came a bit too late.

“It’s a tough game to lose. It was just an unfortunate situation,” he said. “The first half ran away from us. We weren’t really playing our game. We were kind of playing a kick and run. We fell into their trap of doing that. In the second half we put together some great passing, great opportunities.”