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Canfield girls soccer team blanks Boardman
By DAN HINER
CANFIELD
The Boardman girls soccer team has had its fair share of difficulties against All-American Conference rival Canfield in recent years. The Cardinals made sure that trend continued when they met on Wednesday night, winning 3-0.
The Cardinals (3-1, 2-0) didn’t wait to land the first blow as they took a 1-0 lead with 38:16 remaining in the first half after junior Anita Mancini cut through the Spartan defense to score the first goal.
It didn’t take long for the Cardinals to add on to their lead. With 26:08 remaining in the first half, captain Haylee Klacik was able to roll the ball past Boardman goalie Camille Holzschuh to give the Cardinals a 2-0.
“Some of our diagonal runs up top, the movement was good and our players were finding those runs which led to two of our goals in the first half,” Canfield head coach Phil Simone said.
Canfield added one more for good measure. Julia Petrallo scored a goal within the final two minutes of the game to extend the Cardinals’ lead to 3-0. Junior Taylor Meier was credited with the assist.
The Spartans (3-2, 2-2) had trouble on offense all game. Boardman didn’t attempt a shot on goal until the three minutes into the second half.
“Last year, I guess they lost both games by a combined 12-2,” Boardman head coach Josh MacMillan said. “So I think a lot of it was just coming…it’s a new system and a new style of play. (Boardman is) still a little unsure, but we really didn’t play well and Canfield did. A lot of what happened in the first half was because of the way they played, and their style of play is different from anyone else we’ve had.”
Simone wanted his team to stay focused throughout the game. He said the team must learn this lesson because teams will look to beat the Cardinals because they have been on top of the conference.
“It’s always a big challenge,” Simone said. “Any local team honestly is a big challenge, especially in our conference games. I feel like we have a target on our back. I feel like we have a target on our back for winning the conference the past two years. Every team is gunning for us, and sometimes when we go up a goal or two we become complacent. That’s definitely one of the things we definitely need to watch.”
Canfield outshot Boardman 27-5 during the game and took four corner kicks, while Boardman didn’t take a corner kick. Canfield goalie Olivia VanDevender finished the shutout with four saves.
Even though Holzschuh allowed three goals, she didn’t play poorly. She had 14 saves, including eight in the second half.
“A lot of it comes down to is it your day to get the breaks or not,” MacMillan said. “The first goal, Anita Mancini got some space and she’s a very skilled player and she was able to capitalize on a real nice finish. Fortunately for us, even though we played that way, if it wasn’t for our goalie we could have been down by more than two heading into halftime.”
Boardman’s defense did play better in the second half. MacMillan said his young roster is still learning and he expects the team to get better as the season progresses.
“The second half was obviously much better,” he said. “It was scrappy. It was hard work more than anything — trying to get behind the ball and do some things. We had more success in the second half. We at least got to challenge the backline several times. Again, we have 15 kids on the varsity roster and only five of them are juniors and seniors. We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores and they are learning a lot.”