By Roger Gordon

Correspondent

It was quite a battle Sept. 13 for host Kent Roosevelt against Massillon Perry. The Rough Riders won 1-0 to improve to 6-2-2 on the season.

Kent Roosevelt’s Nevaeh Hersman

“It was a grind, it was a very gritty win,” head coach Sammy Spicer said. “It was a physical battle, a battle to not only test our mental strength but our physical strength as well. Perry was a very explosive team and came at us hard and fast, which we did anticipate, but I don’t think we anticipated just how much they’d throw everything at us. We were able to do the things we needed to do to win, though.”

The game’s only goal came by senior center midfielder Hannah Hido with 15 minutes to go in the game.

“Hannah played lights out,” said Spicer. “She was able to pick up the pieces when others were exhausted or couldn’t make a runback or run forward. She was right there, she was everywhere. Hannah has been not only the foundation of our center mids but of the whole team since she stepped onto the field on day one.”

Three days earlier, on Sept. 10 also at home, Kent Roosevelt trounced overmatched Barberton 9-1.

“Because of all the hoopla with it being Youth Night, it took us a minute to get going, but we played pretty well,” said the coach. “We were able to put a lot of things together, especially quick ball movement and putting the ball in the back of the net.”

Scoring two goals apiece were senior center midfielder Gianna Yanelli, junior winger Molly Murphy and sophomore winger Maggie Pazderak.

“Those three players not only were able to get the ball in the back of the net,” Spicer said, “but they’re also leaders in their own ways.”

STREETSBORO

Senior midfielder Addison Mrakovich and junior forward Sara Koyan both scored two goals Sept. 16 in leading Streetsboro to a 6-0 rout at Ravenna. The Rockets improved to 7-3 on the season.

“Addison is our cornerstone on the field. She does a little bit of everything,” head coach Ryan Willard said. “She’s never been a big scorer until this year. It’s fun seeing her take her turn.

“Sara has been phenomenal all year. She’s been great. I don’t think the goals have come as regularly as she thought they’d come, but when she got her chances against Ravenna, she put them away. It was good to see her put the ball into the net.”

Scoring a goal apiece were senior defender Kendall Epple and freshman forward McKenzie Montgomery. Sophomore forward/midfielder Rachel Schofield had an assist.

Because of the lopsided score, Willard was able to play a lot of girls.

“That’s always fun,” he said. “I was also really proud of how the girls shared the ball and got other people involved.”

It was a different story three days earlier, on Sept. 13, in the Rockets’ 7-2 loss at Columbus Bexley.

“Obviously,” said Willard, “when you give up seven goals, you’re not real happy about it.

Bexley scored on seven of their 12 shots on goal. We had 18 shots, so it wasn’t like we didn’t have our chances. They just took advantage of theirs, and we didn’t. I don’t want to take anything away from Bexley; they were definitely the better team.”

Montgomery scored her team’s only two goals, both of which were assisted by junior midfielder/forward Olivia Willard.

“McKenzie has been great for us all season,” said the elder Willard. “She has a knack for putting the ball in the net if you give her a little bit of space. She did a really good job of putting herself in the right spot and putting them away when she had the chance.

“Olivia’s vision of the field is excellent. She’s able to release the pass — and usually the right one — on a regular basis. It helps put our forwards and other teammates into positions to get shots off.”

SOUTHEAST

Defense was the name of the game in both of Southeast’s games — a 4-0 victory Sept. 10 at home over Brookfield and a 4-0 defeat Sept. 13 to visiting Warren John F. Kennedy Catholic.

The game against the Warriors was called midway through the second half due to one of Brookfield’s players getting hurt.

“We totally shut Brookfield down,” head coach Dean Dunlavy said. “They never got the ball in the box. We didn’t give up a shot on goal.”

Scoring a goal apiece were senior forwards Sarah Craver and Ari Fiorentino, senior sweeper Bailey Morris (on a penalty kick) and junior forward Destiny Longgood.

The loss to Warren John F. Kennedy Catholic dipped the Pirates’ record to 7-3.

According to Dunlavy, the Eagles are simply have great players.

“They’re a highly skilled team, they have skill everywhere,” he said. “We were able to get a few shots on goal, but that was about it.”

GARFIELD

Garfield was blanked twice — 3-0 Sept. 10 at Waterloo and the same score Sept. 15 athome against New Middletown Springfield — but the G-Men are making progress. They are already 5-3-1 after having won no games two years ago and three games last year.

“Waterloo has lost only one game all year, and Springfield has lost just two games and

our other loss was to an undefeated Bristol team. These are teams that consistently win nine to 10 games a year, and we’re keeping them close, not getting blown out,” head coach Aaron Gilbert said. “We’re just trying to take that next step. I feel we can push that eight-, nine-win plateau. We just have to find a way to finish. We had a handful of opportunities in the Waterloo and Springfield games. We just don’t have enough firepower to make real threats in some of these games.

“We also have to get more quality scoring opportunities; our opportunities are difficult shots,” Gilbert added. “We’ve missed a couple opportunities on corner kicks, and against the good teams you have to score in those situations.”

In the loss to the Vikings, Garfield gave up two goals in the first 90 seconds of the second half after a scoreless first stanza.

“That was pretty much the game,” Gilbert said. “Waterloo has three quality players who have a lot of firepower.”

In the loss to the Springfield Local, the G-Men trailed just 1-0 at halftime. Junior goalkeeper Olivia Zicari had a lot to do with that, making 13 saves.

“Olivia is putting in a lot of work and is making some tremendous saves,” said the coach.

“For a kid who’d never played soccer before and gets thrown into the fire the first game of the year, it’s been a consistent build with her, just learning the position, kind of growing into it. She ends up being that fifth defender against quality teams because we need a little more help in the back against those teams.”

Gilbert’s squad is searching for that elusive victory against a quality opponent.

“That would prove to the girls,” he said, “that we belong in the same conversation as those quality teams.”

FIELD

The injury bug has hampered Field of late.

Head coach Jason Schindler was down three starters for large chunks of a 2-1 home loss Sept. 13 to Alliance and a 3-0 defeat Sept. 16 at Cloverleaf. The Falcons fell to 5-5 on the season.

“It’s made things a bit difficult for us,” he said. “Both games were still evenly matched, competitive. The Alliance coach made some good adjustments, and we struggled overcoming them. They had some really good speed at their forward positions that kept us on our toes and allowed them to get in behind our defense.”

Senior attacking midfielder Reese Tucker scored Field’s only goal.

“Reese is a very strong player,” said Schindler. “She’s our best player, in fact probably one of the best players in each game we’ve played. She came to play against Alliance. She worked extremely hard, created opportunities but unfortunately just couldn’t find the back of the net on a couple of them.”

In the loss to the Colts, the home team scored a bizarre goal — an “own goal” — with just four-and-a-half seconds left in the first half when a corner kick by Cloverleaf was hooked toward the near post and could not be knocked away.

ROOTSTOWN

Rootstown played well but lost two intense road battles — 1-0 to New Middletown Springfield on Sept. 11 and 2-0 to Salem Sept. 15 — to slip to 4-6 on the season.

“The girls communicated a lot with each other in the Springfield game. Their passes were a lot better, too,” head coach Jasmine Kemp said. “That was probably the best competitive game we’ve had so far this season. I’m really proud of the girls in how they handled it.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Addison Pownall had six saves.

“Addison had a great game,” said Kemp.

The players communicated well again in the Salem game, another very competitive contest. A couple of unlucky goals did the Rovers in.

“The back side was open,” said the coach. “Nobody was back there.”

Pownall had another outstanding game, recording 15 saves.