The Notre Dame High girls soccer team began its season by playing two tough non-conference games. Hopewell Valley contested three before the first match in division play. Allentown opened with Red Bank Catholic. Steinert has already faced a pair of state-title contenders in Cherokee and Middletown South. Colonial Valley Conference realignment has allowed for more scheduling flexibility this fall so that coaches could go out and schedule these kind of games more often. “I like having the non-conference first,” said ND coach Lauren Diaz, who opened with Howell and then traveled to Immaculate Heart Academy. “There are changes that you have to make where you don’t see them until you’re in a real game scenario. Scrimmages are great, but nothing can imitate a real game.” Here was the change the CVC made: When reconfiguring the divisions — the top eight teams from the past two seasons based on win-loss record are in the Colonial, while the Valley is made up of the remaining seven — there are only four mandatory crossover games between the two divisions. Thus the number of CVC games was reduced from 14 to either 11 for Colonial teams and 10 for Valley teams (only games against your division count toward the division title as opposed to all games as in years past). That change makes it possible for more matches from outside the area to be scheduled. “We’ve gone out and played a couple non-conference games and it allowed us to play some pretty good teams and prepare,” said HV coach John McGinley, who has already faced the likes of Kingsway and Hillsborough. “I don’t know sometimes it might hurt you in Powerpoints, but we have a team that needs to grow and I’d rather be playing better later.” One option discussed during realignment was for three divisions of five teams each. You would then play each team in your division home and away for eight games and the top two divisions would play crossovers against one another for a total of 13 within the CVC. The old school purist would probably agree — and not wrongly — that a home-and-away round robin is the proper way to decide a division champ. But then throw in the CVC Tournament and a Central Group III section which includes seven of the CVC’s 15 schools and you’re talking about playing the same team three and maybe four times in a season. “I’m good with it,” McGinley said, “because I don’t want to play a team three times in a season.” What’s clear after the first round of division contests is that the Colonial Division is going to be as advertised. Here were the results from last Thursday: Notre Dame 1, Hopewell Valley 1; Lawrence 1, Steinert 0; Allentown 1, Princeton High 0; Robbinsville 2, Princeton Day 1. That’s all four games decided by one goal or less, with two of them going to overtime (ND-HV and Allentown-Princeton) and a third won on a goal with 30 seconds left (Lawrence over Steinert). “This is how it’s going to be every game when we play in our division,” McGinley said. “It’s going to be nip-and-tuck, and we’ve got to find a way to generate some more offense and score some more goals, but you got to keep fighting.” Tough non-conference dates throughout the fall are one way to stay ready. Plus, as Steinert coach Mike Hastings rightly noted: “There are no trophies handed out for those.” *** The Colonial Division is going to soak up most of the attention given the historical powers involved, but there are some good stories in the Valley Division, too. West Windsor-Plainsboro South is much improved under third-year coach Elisa Mastroianni and first-year coach Jessica Belmont has Nottingham off to a 4-1 start. The Northstars won their fourth straight game on Friday when they held off Hightstown and have outscored opponents 19-1 since an opening day 2-0 defeat to township rival Steinert. “The vibes are to just keep pushing forward,” said Belmont, who was a goalkeeper at Steinert. “We take one game at a time, we don’t take anything for granted. I tell them every time don’t take a team lightly, come out and play your best and we got to score first.” Senior midfielder Bridget Cutty is the early CVC Golden Boot leader with six goals. *** Speaking of goals, nobody at Hopewell Valley scored them with more frequency than Katarina Nilsson. The 2016 CVC and Area Player of the Year is part of the school’s 2024 Hall of Fame Class. Nilsson finished her four-year run at Hopewell as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 88 goals, 47 assists and 223 points. In her 2016 senior season, she netted 35 goals and dished out 26 assists as the Bulldogs won the Mercer County Tournament and reached the Group III semifinals before losing a 4-3 thriller to eventual champion Northern Highlands. “Without a doubt, the best goalscorer I’ve ever coached,” McGinley said. “… Kat was just flat out the best goalscorer I ever coached. Sometimes I feel like I should have let her score more goals.” The ceremony, being held on Thursday at The Washington Crossing Inn, will also induct David Schmutz (’97, golf), Michael Markulec (’14, football and wrestling), Megan Clements (’10, soccer, winter track, lacrosse) and the 1999 boys and girls cross country teams. Clements went on to star in lacrosse for Rutgers and is the offensive coordinator for the women’s lacrosse team at Old Dominion University.