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Niles girls win AAC White soccer title
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Niles’ Kaylee Scarnatti (6) tries to head the ball away from Lakeview’s Sam Yanci during their game Wednesday in Cortland. The teams played to a 1-1 draw, but Niles went home with the AAC White Tier title.
Red Dragons capture title after draw
By Ryan Buck
CORTLAND
The largest cheer from the Niles faithful came when senior midfielder Delainey Cowell’s goal at the 24:11 mark of the second half of the Red Dragons’ All-American Conference match with Lakeview drew her team even.
The second-loudest came two minutes after the final whistle sounded. Niles athletic director Marc Fritz joined the team’s postgame huddle and informed the 11-1-2 Dragons that they were AAC White champions.
Every coach and administrator seemed to sense the moment’s magnitude, but sixth-year coach Jennifer Mease said simply, “We just didn’t tell the girls.”
The league-clincher came not from a triumph on a rival’s home field, but in a 1-1 tie between two of the league’s top three teams.
“We didn’t play our game,” Mease said. “We worked very hard and Lakeview’s extremely tough on their home field, so there was a little bit of panic. The second half was better, but there’s still some learning experience from the game.”
Mease’s reclamation project came to fruition Wednesday, but it certainly was not easy. The Bulldogs (8-3-2) pushed the pace for much of the game and had a preponderance of second-half scoring chances.
After a scoreless first half, the Bulldogs broke the tie.
With 34:40 left in the game, junior midfielder Bethany Hayes laced a perfectly struck 25-yard pass ahead of forward Sam Yanci down the right sideline.
The crafty freshman, with a blonde ponytail hanging on for dear life and neon green Nikes kicking up dead grass with each step, beat one Niles defender and placed a hooking right-footed shot past goalkeeper Vada Flannery just inside the far post.
“She exceeds all expectations,” said Lakeview senior midfielder and stalwart Abby Pavlik. “She came up [into the varsity ranks] and I had heard she was good, but she literally blew everyone away.
“She’s a player that can go to the college level and play right now. I’m happy to have the opportunity to play with her because she’s just a great team player.”
Flannery, who plays the second half of every match for Niles, redeemed herself soon thereafter.
At the 33:35 mark, she made a sprawling deflection on a Rachel Braunegg blast and cleared the resulting corner kick out of trouble moments later.
With barely five minutes left, Flannery stopped another golden chance from Yanci and then snagged Braunegg’s rebound attempt.
“She’s very composed when she’s in there, so any time there’s a rebound she’s very composed to where she doesn’t make that mistake,” Mease said. “It got to be a wet game, so she couldn’t make the initial save but she kept her composure there and made the second.”
The diminutive Cowell, uncovered as her teammates rushed the net on a corner kick, covertly volleyed Hannah Ward’s cross through a wall of bodies into the right corner of the goal for the tie which ultimately clinched the conference.
The Red Dragons had two chances inside the Bulldogs’ 18-yard box in the closing minutes, but never mustered shots at Miranda Meffe.
“Every year I think we’ve developed a stronger program, improved our record as the years went on, and we’ve had more and more players play year-round,” Mease said of a program that has just four seniors. “All these factors have played into it.”
Flannery made four saves in her 40 minutes, withstanding six Lakeview shots. The Bulldogs, having graduated the school’s all-time leading goal-scorer Alli Pavlik last season, are the reigning Division II district finalists in the Youngstown district.