By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The Class of 2022 was a historic one for the Streetsboro High School soccer team.

A Metro Athletic Conference championship, with individual and team records abound.

So, the natural question for the Rockets is who and how would the program stay atop the league after having lost so much talent.

Obviously, so much of the upcoming season is still ahead of Streetsboro and even head coach Ryan Willard would not be ready to compare this year’s team to last year’s generational group, but Friday night did prove one thing to the veteran coach.

His Rockets stepped up and answered their first challenge of the season with a 4-0 non-league road victory at Southeast as part of the OHSAA’s Friday Night Futbol initiative.

And while Streetsboro played solid as a unit, it was sophomore Madelyn Genovese that was electric.

The center midfielder controlled the game with her pace, footskills and distribution to highlight the Rockets’ opener.

Genovese finished with three goals and assisted the team’s other goal.

“Madelyn is a nice player for us and she was last year, too,” Willard said. “It was just that we were so deep last year that we played her as one of our center backs because that is where we needed her. She did a great job there, but it never really gave her a chance to showcase her full skill-set.  This year, we knew we needed to move her forward.”

And she quickly made her impact felt.

She sent freshman teammate Addison Mrakovich into space down the left sideline that Mrakovich settled and connected with her left foot from approximately 25 yards away across the field and into the back net just 16 seconds into the game.

“That doesn’t happen often, but what a burst of energy for our team from the beginning,” Willard said. “That got us going on the right foot that’s for sure.”

Despite the discouraging start, Southeast responded well and battled back competitively with the Rockets for the next 30 minutes to keep the score at just 1-0.

However, Genovese was sparked by some sideline motivation that turned that narrow 1-0 advantage into a 3-0 Rockets lead by halftime.

“Mads was doing such a great job distributing the ball throughout the first half, and we were getting opportunities, but at one point we told her that she needed to also attack more,” Willard said.

It was only seconds later, Willard said, that Genovese scored the Rockets’ second goal of the game at 9:51.

In space inside the box, the crafty sophomore exercised a scissor-step to elude a Southeast defender and calmly pushed the ball into the goal.

A little over nine minutes later, Genovese scored once more. Again, she used a step-over scissor-step down the right sideline, then angled into toward the goal and struck the ball across the face of the Southeast goalkeeper into the back post just before halftime (29.7 seconds).

The hat trick for Genovese came in the second half on a high-level effort.

This time, Mrakovich raced down the left sideline and sent a left-footed cross to the front of the goal, where Genovese was making a sprinting run and used her chest to redirect the ball out of midair and across the goal line.

“She made that one look easier than it is,” Willard said. “That is an advanced skill for any player especially a sophomore.”

Southeast had some scoring opportunities in the second half, but just missed on some great scoring opportunities on phenomenal runs by senior Cami McPeak and sophomore Claire Dillner.