Lakeland Soccer Sectional: Showdown Is Set
LAGRANGE – The expected paths were navigated by the two ranked teams in the Lakeland Girls Soccer Sectional, and will converge Saturday in the championship. DeKalb, ranked No. 10 in Class 2-A, and No. 15 NorthWood both won Thursday night to set up what should be a very entertaining final.
NorthWood made it to its eighth sectional final in the past 11 years with a 4-0 win over Wawasee. A three-goal binge in a five-minute stretch of the first half was the key for the Panthers to oust the pesky Warriors.
The match had all the makings of a possible upset special as NorthWood struggled for much of the first half to shake Wawasee. A Caroline Jenkins cross to Morgan Stickley in the eighth minute found paydirt, but four minutes later Wawasee was lining up a penalty kick. Meghan Beer’s service was read smartly by Kira Robinson and caught, denying the equalizer.
The score remained 1-0 until NorthWood’s Avery Bontrager rifled a shot on goal, which Wawasee keeper Graceanne Kerlin had to punch away for a corner. On the service in by Bontrager, Savannah Feenstra, easily the tallest player on the pitch, was left all alone in the box and picked her spot in the right corner for her header.
Stickley had a breakaway snuffed out by Kerlin three minutes later, but the ball back in eventually found Jenkins, who then sent it back to Stickley and then over to Cindy Barahona, who made her chance count. Less than a minute later, Stickley again got behind the Wawasee defense, using a through ball from Lexi Parisi, and easily beat Kerlin for a rapid-fire 4-0 lead.
“We needed that,” said NorthWood coach Phil Ummel. “We started off slower than we would have like to, and give Wawasee credit, they came out and played harder the first 20 minutes of the first half. We were lucky to get one in, and lucky to have Kira make a great save on the penalty kick. Or who knows what would have happened with this game.”
NorthWood would outshoot Wawasee 8-0 in the second half but not connect on any, part of a 22-2 shot onslaught. Kerlin made 18 saves in the match, including a pair of diving efforts that stymied Stickley twice in a matter of seconds in the fourth minute.
“We knew we had nothing to lose,” said Wawasee head coach Tracy Swain. “We were out there and were able to use what we learned last Thursday for that first 30 minutes, but it was our depth. We get tired, and we don’t have that much depth, and that’s when we start breaking down.”
NorthWood, which had just beaten Wawasee 4-0 in the regular season finale last Thursday, makes the final for the second straight year. Playing in the old 2-A class format last year against Warsaw, Ummel wasn’t singing the praises of the current format, which will have NorthWood continue to try for its first sectional championship after being left holding the runner-up ball on seven other occasions.
“We certainly talked about not letting it happen, but it’s certainly human nature,” said Ummel of the ‘trap game’ against Wawasee. NorthWood is 11-4-2 heading into Saturday’s 6 p.m. final against the 13-2-2 Barons. “We had just played Wawasee and it’s easy to look past a team you just beat. I hope we didn’t do that but I’m sure human nature sneaks in, too.”
Wawasee (3-14) will have to take the silver lining into its offseason. An abysmal O-fer NLC season and a six-game slide to end its slate still saw the team play toe-to-toe with NorthWood for essentially 75 minutes and not give up any junk goals in the second half.
“We lose one starter, I’m excited for next year because the girls know we have a lot to look forward to,” Swain said.
In the night’s first matchup, the host Lakers gave DeKalb all it could handle in a 4-2 final. Grace Snyder had two goals while Faith Lewis and Kendyl Smith both potted a solo. Karley Alleshouse and Kylee Palmer had the goals for Lakeland.