Poland thrives, and then survives

By Chuck Housteau

POLAND — The Poland girls soccer team built a 4-0 halftime lead and then held on in the second half to defeat Canton GlenOak 4-3 in a Division I district semifinal at Dave Pavlansky Field in Poland.

The Bulldogs (15-2-2) advanced to the district championship game at Canfield Thursday at 7 p.m with a trip to the regionals on the line.

Canfield defeated Fitch 1-0 in Monday’s other semifinal.

Poland and Canfield tied both times the two teams faced each other in the regular season.

Against GlenOak, Poland’s Tatum Marucci had a goal and two assists to lead the Bulldogs in a four-goal flurry in the first half.

But the Golden Eagles didn’t see fit to hand the Bulldogs an easy route to the championship game and rallied to cut the Poland lead to 4-3 on a goal by McKensey Cross with 10:26 left in the contest.

Poland regrouped and kept tremendous pressure on the GlenOak defense in the final 10 minutes to preserve the victory.

“I learned something tonight,” said Poland coach John Cavalier. “It’s only my second year coaching and I took the momentum away from our team by trying to play a lot of girls in the second half.

“That’s why you have to play 80 minutes,” Cavalier said. “I tried to play most of our bench to try to get them some playoff experience and to GlenOak’s credit they didn’t quit.

Cavalier said he was pleased his team didn’t quit either and responded with another 10 minutes of soccer that enabled the Bulldogs to advance.

“We played a good game,” said Cavalier. “We missed some open shots early in the second half but we’re looking forward to Thursday and another matchup with Canfield.”

The Bulldogs played nearly perfect soccer in the first 40 minutes behind a tremendous passing attack that enabled Poland to get off easy kicks at the Golden Eagles’ net.

The Bulldogs were clicking on all cylinders right from the opening kick.

Erin Gabriel got Poland on the scoreboard within the first four minutes of the game when she scored off a corner kick from Marucci.

Five minutes later at the 31:44 mark of the first half, Abby Chandler scored on a header off a rebound shot by Jordan Palumbo. Palumbo’s shot from in front of the goal hit the crossbar and caromed toward Chandler who knocked it past Glen Oak’s goal keeper.

Freshman Carolyn Balzano scored Poland’s third goal with 15:09 left in the half off a great pass from Marucci. Balzano broke free and dribbled down the field before finding an opening in the right side of the net.

Marucci then looked like she put the game away for Poland when the junior broke open and took a pass from Gabriel in stride for an easy goal with 3:41 left in the half.

“We came out panicked,” said GlenOak coach Courtney Schafer about her team’s poor first half performance. “We talked at halftime. We knew it was a lot about attitude that was keeping us out of the game and we regrouped.”

GlenOak got goals from Megan Block and Cross to cut the lead to 4-2 midway through the second half.

Poland defender Madison Gessler said the Bulldogs faced a wake-up call after that second goal.

“We were on a good run in the first half but I don’t know what happened there in the second half,” Gessler said. “We knew we were messing up and we had to get back to playing our game.

“I think we did that down the stretch.”

GlenOak got one last goal before Poland put the pressure on the Eagles and kept the ball away from it own net and keeper Abbie Frank.

“We finished strong,” Cavalier said. “We won’t make that mistake anymore. We know we have to play our game for 80 minutes.”