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Cougars oust Cardinals after controversial call
By Ryan Buck
LYNDHURST
Despite an advantage in possession and decided advantage in shot attempts throughout the match, the Canfield girls soccer team fell in overtime, 1-0, to Mentor Lake Catholic Tuesday night in a Division II regional semifinal.
The Cardinals, the second-ranked team in the state in the final coaches’ poll and champions of the Austintown district, saw their third consecutive regional appearance end on one of the Cougars’ rare shots on goal.
And it was not without a little controversy.
With the Cougars on a counterattack with five minutes gone in the first of two possible 15-minute overtime periods, Lake Catholic forward Ashley Bayer and Canfield defender Cheyenne Story both broke for a loose ball near the corner flag to the left of the Canfield goal.
When both players made contact, the ball appeared to carom off Bayer’s foot and across the goal line for a Canfield goal kick.
The referee nearest the play, however, awarded the Cougars a corner kick.
Bayer received a well-executed short corner kick-pass and turned toward goal before quickly finding Valerie Lauderback inside Canfield’s 18-yard box. The junior midfielder, unmarked, deftly drilled a point-blank right-footed shot into a wide-open net from 10 yards away with 9:01 left in the sudden-death overtime period.
“You get an open opportunity and you take advantage of it,” said Lake Catholic coach Steve Sivik, whose team rehearsed the play often during the season.
Canfield coach Phil Simone said he couldn’t tell whether the correct call was made leading into the Bayer-Lauderback sequence.
“I couldn’t tell if it was a corner kick or not,” Simone said. “The girls say ‘No,’ but ... I can’t say a lot about the officiating because we’re not supposed to, but I thought it was very inconsistent the whole game.
“And then we weren’t paying attention [setting up for the corner kick]. The only opportunity [Lake Catholic] had for the last 20 minutes, they capitalize on it.”
The Cardinals fired 13 second-half shots, including five on goal, but Cougars goalkeeper Marissa Brannon kept them off the scoreboard for the first time all season. Lake Catholic, by contrast, took four second-half shots, forcing Raquel Abel into one save.
Brannon cleared an errant pass off her goal line in the first half before speedy Canfield forward Bailey Fischer could finish.
Fischer nearly had another with 3:27 left in the first half after Brannon robbed Anita Mancini from six yards away, but the ball found the side netting.
“She’s come up big over and over again throughout the year and this doesn’t surprise me,” Sivik said.
The assault on Brannon continued.
Mancini split the Cougars’ defense with a pass for her sister, Sophia, with 4:45 left in the match. Brannon charged, forcing an errant shot that missed wide left from 15 yards.
After a Lake Catholic foul early in the overtime period, Brannon reached full extension to push away a well-struck 20-yard free kick from Sydney Miller that nearly found the far corner of the goal.
With 11:52 left, Brannon knocked away Haylee Klacik’s blast, setting up the match’s final run.