Badgers win district title
Coach Ian Patterson has been preaching to his girls soccer team at Berkshire High to work together as a team, using fundamentals as the key ingredient.
Match photos click here.
Coach Ian Patterson has been preaching to his girls soccer team at Berkshire High to work together as a team, using fundamentals as the key ingredient.
It worked before, and is working again this season as the team is now underway in a postseason push to state competition.
The Badgers faced a young but talented Pymatuning Valley Lakers team having its own successful season in Division 5 district semifinal action, and a pair of hat tricks scoring carried the Badgers to a convincing 8-0 victory.
“The girls tightened up on defense tonight,” Patterson said. “We knew PV was a bit stronger than Newton Falls was, so good defense was what we needed to have. We marked up better and took care of business tonight,”
Did they ever? In pregame warmups the Badgers break off into groups and do nothing but pass the ball back and forth; once the opening kickoff occurred, they did that the rest of the night to control the action continuously.
The Badgers got off 39 shots on goal against a tough Lakers team that ended its season with a 10-6-record, but they rarely faced a total team effort like Berkshire threw at them.
Led by midfielder Mary Lee in controlling the ball, PV got off only one shot on goalkeeper Liv Masink in this contest. She made an easy save, and otherwise was not challenged.
“We knew that PV was stronger than Newton Falls was,” Lee said. “We needed to contain them, connect on our passes, and make sure we got good results on our first touches tonight.”
As the Badgers peppered Laker skeeper Kendall Gray from the onset, it took 15 minutes for the Badgers to hit the back of the nets. Lee found Kelly McCandless with a crossing pass and the new all-time season goal leader for the Badgers sent the ball into the net.
It was the first of her trio of scores on the night as she set a school record with 33 total netfinders, but whereas in other games, she dominated, it was a total team effort in this contest.
Four minutes later, freshman forward Emma Rucinski fired home a rebound to score, and 1:07 later Marissa Karl sent a pass in front of Gray that Rucinski deposited for her second goal of the night.
That was it for the first half as the tight Laker defense battled the Badgers in the midfield area the rest of the half.
“Tonight was really great,” McCandless said. “It’s really great to break the school record for goals in a season, but tonight we showed how much more of a team we are. We need to remind ourselves all the time that we want to win every game, and tonight everybody had a role.”
Lee scored herself just over 10 minutes into the second half from the right wing, and the Badgers picked up the intensity to close out the win.
Rucinski completed her hat trick with just under 19 minutes gone in the second half by taking a pass from McCandless, who had a pair of assists beside her hat trick scoring, then the speedy junior forward took a loose ball near midfield and went all the way and drilled home a shot, then followed it up by taking a pass from Lee, again at the 22:30 mark for a 7-0 score.
Needing only another goal to end the contest, senior Kylie Gleason used a super header off a corner kick to score with 29:23 gone in the second half to close out the win.
As a freshman, Emma Rucinski sees the opportunity in front of herself and her teammates.
“I’m just trying to play up to my full potential,” she said after the game. “It’s important for us to play as a team, which is what we work on every day. We try to get into a good flow in what we’re doing, and things worked well for us tonight.”
Berkshire won the district title days later and took on Warren JFK in a Division 5 regional matchup at Brunswick High School.
The Badgers warm up every game with purpose to build a team atmosphere, it’s working well, and no matter the competition, any foe will need their A game to get by this band of Badgers.
