'Tiny little power house of a player': Zub leads Franklin girls soccer into Sweet 16
FRANKLIN - Defenders often overlook Franklin forward Anya Zub in the box.
At their own peril.
She's listed at 5 feet tall, not exactly a prototypical air threat. What Zub lacks in height, she makes up with spatial awareness and pure athleticism. Zub headed in two goals in the first half, as the No. 6 Panthers rolled No. 27 Westford Academy 6-0 in their playoff opener.
"People don't expect me to get that ball. Kelly (O'Connor) plays them with just the right time for me to time my jump and catch thowse defenders off guard and get to them first," Zub said.
She elevated for the first one in the 11th minute, popping the ball into the top right corner. The second landed in the net just before the halftime whistle from a standing header to put Franklin up 4-0. O'Connor assisted both.
"(Zub) is a tiny little powerhouse of a player. She gets a lot of those cheeky little head touches. When she elevates like to get that first header goal, when she gets that high in the air, I'm always surprised," Franklin coach Jody Klein said. "She's just so powerful. Se's little, but she's incredibly strong."
In between those goals, Franklin senior captain Maddie Horton put away her first varsity goal. The Panthers earned a corner, and Selene Hammad lofted a pass into the box. It dropped amongst a collection of bodies, but Horton wheeled around and stepped into a laser shot to the back of the net.
"It's all kind of a blur right now. I've been trying to get in the box more this season," Horton said. "It was really special."
Franklin's Liv Costa opened the scoring in the seventh minute, chipping a shot ove the Ghosts' goalie after corralling a long, bouncing pass from Morgan Lovell.
"We knew that they played a very similar style. They like to possess the ball. We knew we needed to come out and do it better and faster," Klein said.
After setting up her teammates in the first half, O'Connor put the ball on her boot in the second. She turned on a loose ball outside the box in the 64th minute, curling it into the far corner. O'Connor then settled a long pass from Lovell with four minutes left and chipped the keeper to collect the brace and her fourth point of the evening.
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"We're all working together for the common goal, but it is nice to have some goals in your own and succeed in both," O'Connor said.
Keeper Rachel Welch made five saves to help keep a clean sheet.
The Panthers will host No. 11 Algonquin, which reached the state final last year, in the Round of 16 at 6 p.m.
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"This is definitely the round that we want to win because we set the goal to get past the Round of 16," O'Connor said. "It's definitely an important one that we want to be able to lock in and produce."
Contact Kyle Grabowski at kgrabowski@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @kylegrbwsk.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Franklin girls soccer handles Westford Academy in D1 Round of 32
