By ERIC RUEB

Contributing writer

NORTH SMITHFIELD – As the No. 1 seed in the Division III girls soccer tournament, North Smithfield coach Stephen DeMeo was hoping for a better first-round matchup than the one he got.
“I’ll be perfectly honest and it’s not a popular thing to say, but we were really hoping we didn’t run into Narragansett in the first round,” DeMeo said. “Narragansett and Burrillville were the two best teams we played all year so we knew it was going to be tough.”
He was right.
The Northmen got a goal from Ashleigh Guy with 9:32 left in the first half and kept Narragansett stars Elise Bolster and Jaqclyn Iannucci in check in a 1-0 win Thursday night.
Guy’s goal was the winner, but the North Smithfield defense proved to be the difference.
DeMeo marked Bolster and Iannucci with Tori Franchesci and Sarah Mundy, who he called his two defensive players. While they didn’t completely shut down the Mariner duo, they prevented them from any solid shots on goal.
“The focus was on them,” DeMeo said. “We put our two best defenders on them and they still got free.”
The play of the game happened with just over 17 minutes to play when Bolster had a broke through the Northmen defense and looked headed for a one-on-one situation with goalkeeper Seidra Either.
But from the right side came Perri Bennett with a perfect slide tackle, breaking up the play.
“If it wasn’t for a fantastic slide tackle by our sweeper, I’m fully confident Elise would have put that goal in,” DeMeo said. “It was a really game-changer.”
North Smithfield moves on to the semifinals, where it will host St. Raphael, the No. 2 seed from the South, which won 3-2 over Johnston.