We’ve had some wild weather in Northeast Ohio lately, it can’t be denied. As few have not been affected in one way or another, high school sports has been stopped in its tracks at times.
Photos from the Aug. 11 game click here.
We’ve had some wild weather in Northeast Ohio lately, it can’t be denied. As few have not been affected in one way or another, high school sports has been stopped in its tracks at times.
One of those times saw Berkshire Badgers girls soccer visiting its Chardon Hilltopper counterparts Aug. 11. The teams got into that contest just over 27 minutes before bad weather forced a temporary postponement, to Sept 7.
Based on a pair of Kelly McCandless first half goals, the Badgers held a 2-0 lead until action was halted with 12:09 left in the first half.
Resuming play this passed Thursday, with conditions much safer and conducive to top-notch soccer, the teams resumed play on Memorial Field in Chardon, and despite feverous action from both sides, especially in the second half, Berkshire withstood the Hilltoppers’ attack to claim a thrilling 2-1 victory against its neighborhood rival.
“We knew coming in today that we would be playing a close game here,” McCandless said when it was over.
In improving to 4-2-1 on the season, Berkshire has developed a solid program under Head Coach Ian Patterson. The same can be said for the Hilltoppers (3-3) of Head Coach Chad Johnson, and their leadership showed the entire time the game went on, in both directions.
McCandless, only a sophomore, had a big first half in the original part of the game, but wasn’t allowed to roam as freely in this resumption of action. Her outlook was clear.
“We’ve been passing the ball very well all season,” McCandless said. “It’s really good for us to play good teams like Chardon because it gives us hard games to play. That’s what we need if we are going to build a standard of excellence here for the future; we’ve got to do it now.”
Defense was huge for both teams. Berkshire fired home 11 shots on goal in the second half, with Hilltopper keeper Haidyn Bunker being up for the task of stopping all of them, several from point blank range.
The Toppers controlled much of the second half action by attacking full force, and Badgers keeper Liv Masink also was superb, paced by solid defense in front of her. With 7:45 gone in the second half, though, in a massive scrum from about five yards out in front of Masink, Chardon finally, after about five shots on goal that were blocked, saw Carly Heflin push the ball into the net for the only CHS score of the contest.
The Hilltoppers fired off 12 shots of their own in the second half, with rebounds aplenty, and as both teams swarmed to the ball, blocks and saves became the order of the day.
“This was just a great game between two good teams,” Patterson said. “This is the type of games we need to keep getting better, and I think we are showing ourselves to be a pretty good team.”
Berkshire junior Mary Lee was a fixture on defense, playing in the midfield position. No matter where the ball went, Mary was sure to go, if you can excuse the pun. Her passing was crisp and on target, and she stopped several big rushes from a speedy Hilltopper front line.
“I am just trying to learn to stay more aggressive and move to the ball as often as I can,” Lee said.
It took spectacular plays from Berkshire to stop the Hilltoppers, too, and they knew it.
Senior forward Teagan Sprague was thwarted several times at close range, but appreciated what the game meant for her team.
“We’re playing pretty good soccer right now,” she said, loading her equipment into the family transport after the game. “It takes good teams like Berkshire to bring out the best in us every game, which is what we want.”
Bunker agreed: “We played very well today against a good Berkshire team. That’s what it will take to build our program.”
Coach Johnson saw many positives from this contest, even if it did take many days to get the game finished.
“I think today we may have outplayed them a little bit,” he said. “It could well have been that when we started the game, we were a little nervous. But today we knew what we had to do to come back, and it just came up short.
“You have to credit both teams, though, for playing as hard as they could. This should give us a good start this week when we open up on Tuesday against South in league action. We play a lot of tough teams, and Berkshire fits right in with all of them.”
For true soccer fans, this game had loads of everything positive, but Chardon just couldn’t quite get over the hump coming back from such a long weather delay.
BILL FUGATE/KMG
Berkshire’s Kelly McCandless hugs teammate Madison Durosko after scoring two goals in a halted Aug. 11 game that was finished Sept. 7 at Memorial Field against Chardon. The Badgers held in the resumed game to win 2-1.
