Sunny days are here again...or for the first time ever, really
In fact, fourth-year Lady Knights head coach Josh Wengerd even said, “The seniors have been in some pretty lopsided – 6-0, 4-0 – losses to this team and Lexington used to put double-digits on us.”
So what was unusual was the fact that West Holmes also held Lady Lex scoreless on the night, coming home with a 0-0 tie and a record of 5-5-1, including 1-3-1 against OCC opponents.
“Sometimes ties feel like wins, sometimes they feel like losses, sometimes they just feel like a tie,” said Wengerd, whose team had only registered three victories against conference foes…ever, during its’ eight seasons as a varsity program, prior to this year – beating Mansfield Senior once in 2008 and twice in 2009 while suffering severe beatings at the hands of the other five conference opponents. “I think this one feels a little like a win for our girls.”
The Lady Knights picked up an actual win two nights earlier, on their home field, beating Mansfield Senior again, 4-0, to pick up their fourth ever OCC victory, after being swept in two meetings against the Lady Tygers in 2010.
West Holmes senior forward Jordan Buchanan put the Lady Knights up 1-0 against Senior less than three minutes into the game, on Tuesday, Sept. 20, picking up her team-leading eighth goal of the season, as freshman forward Mallory Wahl’s shot was deflected by Lady Tygers sophomore goalkeeper Jillian Nehrkorn and Buchanan followed up, putting one in past the left post.
Those two nearly reversed roles 17 minutes later when Nehrkorn couldn’t wrap up Buchanan’s blast from 15 yards out, allowing West Holmes senior forward Schuyler Jones to play it backwards to Wahl, who buried it into the right side and gave West Holmes a 2-0 first-half lead.
“They’re starting to realize that the ball doesn’t always have to be moving forward,” explained Wengerd as he watched the Lady Knights string together controlled passes to setup scoring opportunities while Mansfield Senior played more of a kickball style of soccer reminiscent of some of the West Holmes games from the previous eight years. “Instead of trying to squeeze it between two opposing players down the sideline, if there’s somebody 10 yards behind you with nobody on them, drop it.
“That kickball style, sometimes it’s hard to predict and that’s where your possession and your passing really come in because the more we can possess the ball and keep it at our feet the less likely they are to send a loud one down there that sneaks past your center back and they get a one-on-one with the keeper.”
Senior didn’t sneak much past the West Holmes defense as the Lady Knights outshot the Lady Tygers 25-8 and took four corners to Senior’s one.
But during the halftime break Mansfield Senior head coach Dustin Hosler told his team he felt they had the momentum going into the last 40 minutes of the game because they had kept the ball on their offensive end of the field for much of the first-half.
“They created some chances tonight off of that kickball style,” said Wengerd after watching the Lady Tygers clang one off the top right elbow of the posts, at the 34:40 mark of the second-half, before Lady Knights junior goalie Shelby Harris wrapped up the followup shot for one of her eight saves (Nehrkorn would be forced to come up with 16 at the other end). “We got kind of lucky back there tonight and I think sometimes you need that luck to come out on the positive side of things.”
It also helps to just keep scoring, which the Lady Knights did 1:36 later, as Wahl picked up her fourth point of the game, with an assist to Jones, who took the ball on the left side, dribbled across to the middle of the penalty box and launched a shot into the back of the net to Nehrkorn’s left.
“It’s kind of been the thorn all year, is not being able to capitalize on our opportunities,” explained Hosler. “We’ve had numerous games as of late where we’ve had the opportunities and not been able to finish.
“The defense has been stepping up a little bit. Obviously, they [West Holmes] got a few good goals there, but the defense is keeping us in the game. We’re a very young team, a very inexperienced team and we’re just working through that this year.”
A young, inexperienced team that continued to punch the ball into their offensive end with booming kicks to nowhere, while the West Holmes defense did a good job of turning defense into offense with solid passing.
“You have to be confident when you make the pass because if you second guess yourself then you’ve missed the spot and the play that it could have become,” explained senior defender Amy Boyd who would go down with an LCL sprain against Lexington two nights later, forcing Wengerd to shuffle his defense, and making the shutout against Lady Lex (1-7-2) (1-2-2) even more impressive. “You just have to trust your instincts and trust that you’re going to make the right pass whenever you do make it.”
With just over 23:00 remaining in the game, junior midfielder Kourtney Kozak made the right pass while transitioning the Lady Knights from defense to offense, clearing a ball deep in Lady Tygers (2-6-1) (0-3) offensive territory with a pass ahead to Jones, on the left side, then watching the senior wing dribble into the far side of the penalty box and rocket a shot into the lower left corner to cap the 4-0 shutout.
“I planned to pass it to her hoping that she would get the ball and make a scoring opportunity out of it,” explained Kozak afterward. “And she did.
“It’s frustrating playing a team like Senior because you never know where the ball is going to go, because they don’t know where it’s going to go. [As a midfielder] you have to get back on defense and get the ball, but then right as soon as you get the ball you have to switch your mind and think, now we have to score.”
But when Boyd went down against Lexington, Kozak moved back on defense where she excelled prior to the 2011 campaign, combining with sophomore defenders Alexis Rolince and Madelyn Brewer to help keep Lady Lex off the scoreboard, even as West Holmes was outshot 12-6 and Harris was forced to make eight saves.
“We moved some girls around and the defense played well,” said Wengerd. “The first half was pretty even, with a lot of back-and-forth on the field. The second half I think Lex probably played a bit better than us and we kind of weathered the storm.”
But the tie against Lexington may be further indication that the gray clouds hovering over the Lady Knights during OCC competition may soon be clearing, as two of the Lady Knights’ three losses against conference opponents this year have been decided by a single goal – falling 3-2 against both Mansfield Madison and defending conference champion Clear Fork.
The same cannot be said about the storm clouds hovering above the West Holmes boys team, which keep getting darker and darker, as the Knights were outshot 21-10, on their home field, against Lexington, falling 6-0 while dropping to 2-8-1 on the season and 1-5 against OCC opponents.
As of press time for this issue of the Holmes County Journal, the Knights were scheduled to play at Wooster on Tuesday, Sept. 27, while the Lady Knights play host to the Lady Generals on the same night.
Fans of West Holmes soccer are hoping the skies are clear over both venues.
Published: September 22, 2011
