Lady Scotties nip Waynesburg, 2-1
WAYNESBURG — Trailing 1-0 at halftime, the Southmoreland girls’ soccer team tallied two second-half goals and prevailed 2-1 over Waynesburg Central in a well-played, non-section contest Wednesday night.
In the evenly played match-up, the Lady Scots (9-7) carried the play in the final 40 minutes and bounced back after being eliminated from the playoffs earlier in the week.
“We played with more intensity in the second half and it started immediately at the start of the second half,” Southmoreland coach Bob King said. “We picked up the tempo and we were more active with our possessing game. We were getting better scoring chances and took advantage of some penalties. Even though it was non-section, we wanted to win this game.”
After having one loss for most of the season, the Lady Raiders (11-3) dropped their second match after suffering a 4-0 setback to Belle Vernon in their Section 4-AA finale on Monday.
“We knew we had to shake off that Belle Vernon loss and get back to work,” Waynesburg coach Joe Kijowski said. “For the most part we played well, but stupid mistakes cost us. Sometimes the little things are why you lose games. Mistakes happen at the wrong times for us.”
Waynesburg still has a chance of winning its section if Belle Vernon loses or ties at least one of its final two section games. The section title would be the program’s first.
After Elle Hampson booted a free kick near midfield, Waynesburg’s Madison Clayton was able to get behind the defense and corral the ball for her 28th goal of the year at 37:02.
Both teams had quality scoring chances in the first half, but both teams’ goalkeepers were active and made several key saves.
Clayton, Lily Behm and Bailey Fudala all had solid chances in the offensive zone, but were denied by the Lady Scots’ goalie Valentina Carducci.
On the other hand, Southmoreland’s Maddie Bodenheimer and Olivia Porter had strong chances to score, but the Lady Raiders’ keeper Josey Evans was up to the task.
Carducci ended up with 10 stops, while Evans finished with nine.
Waynesburg held a 9-7 advantage in shots in the opening 40 minutes and was up 1-0 at halftime.
It was all Lady Scots to start the second half and the visitors knotted the game up at 1-1 after a goal by Julia Cummings at the 32:12 mark.
Southmoreland took its first lead at the 22:24 mark of the second half when Porter converted a penalty kick for the game-winning marker.
The Lady Raiders had some late scoring chances, but Southmoreland’s defense made enough plays and stepped up in their end to preserve the victory.
“Our goalkeeper has done a tremendous job for us this year,” King said. “At the beginning of the season we didn’t have a keeper and Valentina was an exchange student from Italy.
She is phenomenal in net and anticipates shots so well.”
Both teams will be back in non-section action on Saturday, as Waynesburg hosts South Fayette and Southmoreland travels to Elizabeth-Forward.
“It was Senior Night for us and our seven seniors have had a huge impact on the program,” Kijowski said. “These girls saw time when they were freshmen when we were getting pummeled every night. Now the program is turned around and it’s bittersweet we couldn’t get them a win tonight. We got the playoffs now, and we have to learn from these losses and regroup.”