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Shonce lifts Fitch over Boardman
By Greg Gulas
AUSTINTOWN
Boardman High girls soccer coach Fawzi Mujahed says his team has struggled this season when playing on artificial turf.
The trend continued on Saturday during a 2-1 loss at Fitch. The Falcons, however, improved to 2-3 on their artificial surface.
“This was just another physical game between two great rivals; a game this is usually decided by a goal, just like today,” Fitch coach Tex Martin said.
With the game knotted at 1-all at the intermission, the Falcons’ Meghan Shonce nailed the game-winning goal at 29:58 of the second half to lift the Falcons over their former Federal League rivals.
“I was at the top of the 18-yard mark, took the pass from Jayme Ritchie and was lucky enough to be able to drill it in the upper 90 portion of the goal,” Shonce said. “Everything just seemed to come together at the right moment on that play.”
The Senior Day crowd watched the Spartans (4-6-1) take the early advantage when Boardman’s Kayleigh Huck, with an assist from Hailey Dickey, nailed a shot past Falcons goalkeeper Jessica Scott just a minute and 20 seconds into the game.
At 30:52 of the opening half, Juliana Figueroa’s unassisted goal from 50-yards out went over the head of Spartan goalkeeper Teryn Ross to knot the game at 1-all.
The Falcons (6-4) held a 5-4 shots on goal advantage after the first 40 minutes of play.
With a good portion of the second half being played on the Austintown Fitch side of the field, Shonce broke free long enough to score the deciding goal 10 minutes into the final half. The Falcons were outshot 10-2 after the intermission and 14-7 in the game.
“You have to give credit to Meghan [Shonce] for scoring the game-winner, but Jessica [Scott] did another outstanding job in goal for us this afternoon as well,” Martin said. “We’ve been practicing dropping the ball flat to our midfielder or defender when our backs are against the goal, hoping to get off a good shot.
“That’s exactly what Meghan did today when Jayme [Ritchie] dropped the ball to her,” Martin said. “Jessica [Scott] has been very busy in goal the last several games and was very active for us again today.”
Mujahed added that missed opportunities proved to be costly for his team.
“It’s a tough loss and one that I felt we didn’t deserve had we just taken advantage of some of our scoring opportunities,” Mujahed said.