The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Panthers claw way to win against Warriors
While all pre-game indications pointed toward a blowout victory for the hosts when Fairview visited Elyria Catholic on Sept. 7 in a Great Lakes Conference girls soccer matchup, it was anything but.
The undefeated Panthers had to scratch and claw for everything they got fromthewinless Warriors, eventually taking a hard-fought 1-0 victory on sophomore Emily Vogel’s 14th goal of the season with 16minutes, 26 seconds to play.
For the game’s first 63 minutes, it was a battle between two evenly matched squads.
“Theywere actually a pretty good team,” Vogel said. “I wasn’t expecting that. They came out and hit us in the mouth, but we were able to
keep playing well and picked it up in the second half and ended up scoring the goal. It was a good win.”
With the victory, the Panthersmove to 6-0-1 overall, 3-0 in GLC play. Fairview, new to the GLC, is now 0-6 and 0-3. The sixth victory of the season was an especially important one for Elyria Catholic coach Dana McNeely.
“They have now officially beaten their record from last year in wins,” she said. “We now have six wins, and we only had five all of last year. So, it’s a good year so far.”
On the other hand, Fairview can’t seem to figure out a way to win.
The Warriors certainly appear to be better than their record would indicate, the result of a very difficult slate of games to open the season.
“We played three Division I schools and then we played Rocky River and Holy Name in our conference,” Coach Dana Reuter said. “We’ve had some tough- caliber teams the first five games. Each game we just ask themto improve and be better than they were the game before, and I think they did that today.”
While the teams’ records are polar opposites, there actually are some similarities. Both squads have head coaches named Dana and both have solid defenses that are led by No. 7. For Elyria Catholic that’s junior Avery Doll, who spearheaded a group that allowed only four shots on goal, none of which tested goalkeeper Cameron Resor.
For Fairview, No. 7 is senior Emily Tarase, who combined with Anna Newbacher, Jenna Polyak and Abby Smith to hold down a team that had scored 32 goals in its first six matches.
“They are a very tough team right through the center of the field, and they kept us quiet,” McNeely said. “That’s something that hurt us a little bit. We just couldn’t distribute out of the center of the field. They have some really solid players through the center of the field.”
Before the game was evenaminute old, McNeely began urging her team to play with more energy and movement. Eventually she turned to the bench and said, “Why are we so sluggish?” It seems that perhaps the answer is that the game started at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. In fact, the only blemish on the team’s record, a 1-1 tie against Vermilion, came in a game that was played a week ago on a Saturday morning.
“Last weekend we had one and we tied,” Vogel said. “They’re not the best games that we play, but today we got a win. So that’s good improvement from last week.”
While McNeely said the Fairview defense caused her team some problems, she added that she thought the low-scoring output from her teamwas asmuch from the early start as anything else.
“I’m going to say it was a little more of us, honestly,” she said. “We were a little sluggish. In the second half we possessed the ball a lot more and had a lot more shots on goal. We were just a bit sluggish in the beginning and we weren’t anticipating the ball quite enough, and it killed us a little bit.”
The lone goal of the game came after the ball was kicked around by both teams about 20 yards in front of the Fairview goal. After the Warriors failed to clear, EC sophomore Zoe Shildwachter sent the ball in the direction of Vogel, who powered a shot low and left and Fairview goalkeeper Molly Haskin was helpless to make the save. It was the 14th goal of the season for Vogel.
“I’m pretty sure it was just like a scrum in the box,” she said. “Zoe ended up kicking it over to the side, and I was just there, and it went right in the corner. It was a good team effort for that goal.”
Speaking of good team effort, while Reuter has to be pleased with how her team played against an undefeated squad, she also has to be wondering just when the teamwill break through and get its first win.
“We just have to keep our heads up and stay positive and make sure that we are working together and communicating together,” she said. “We’ll get that first win eventually.”