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Springfield seniors’ long road ends vs. Elyria Catholic
By Brian Dzenis
UNIONTOWN
From just three wins in a season to Springfield’s first girls soccer district title, the first senior class to spend all four years with coach Justin Kosek has taken quite the journey.
That journey came to an end Tuesday night with a 6-0 loss to Elyria Catholic in a Division III regional semifinal at Green High School.
“I saw improvement every year and that’s all you can ask for as a coach,” Kosek said. “To be one day from playing in November? I’m thrilled to death. Obviously, I wanted to keep going but we hit a hard team — a very hard team — at the end. I don’t know if the were mentally quite ready for that kind of pressure, but the underclassmen live and learn from it.”
Elyria Catholic (15-5) was the more experienced side in the postseason department.
The Panthers were in their first regional semifinal since 2014, when they made the state semifinals.
The Panthers also had the tougher schedule, facing seven D-I teams this fall and going 6-1 against them. Springfield did not play any D-I sides, going 4-3 against D-II competition.
“They definitely played really fast,” Tigers senior forward Cierra Latronica said. “They definitely had a lot more skill all the way around.”
Springfield (17-3) mastered the regular season by shredding teams with 10-plus goals 10 times.
Leading that charge was freshman Kylee Kosek, who finishes her first varsity campaign with 42 goals and 22 assists, a team high in both categories.
Filling the net behind her were seniors Latronica (38 goals, 14 assists) and Haley LaMorticella (24 goals, eight assists).
“We couldn’t do this without each other and our team,” Latronica said. “It all starts with assists and key passes to the top.”
Kylee, Justin’s daughter, is a player Springfield can work with moving forward for the Tigers.
“I couldn’t wait for this year. It went a lot better than I thought it would,” Justin Kosek said. “She took some pressure off [Latronica] and she opened things up for her. They fed off each other and assisted each other. Honestly, I’m more proud of her 22 assists than the 42 goals. It’s amazing, but I always stress making the extra pass and that’s what I’m most proud of this year.
“We have a couple of club girls coming up that she played with. We’re not going to be able to replace 16 seniors, but we should be able to fill some holes here and there.”
Against Elyria Catholic, Kylee Kosek was at the top of the Tigers’ 4-2-3-1. She had Springfield’s best chance to equalize early in the match, juking out a defender to create a quality chance, but she pushed the ball right of the post.
Two of the four Elyria Catholic players left over from that 2014 team had a hand in knocking out Springfield.
Six minutes into the contest, a bad Tigers’ clearance attempt went into the path of the Panthers’ Ryan Kunkle, who promptly slotted the ball into the lower right corner.
With less than 10 minutes to go in the first half, Springfield gave up two goals within a minute of each other. Elyria Catholic’s Makenna Hodges scored off a penalty where Springfield goalie Lex Slike guessed the right direction of the kick, but still couldn’t reach the ball. Hodges found the net again off a feed from Delany Stringer.
In the second half, Kunkle had a brace to give her a hat trick for the Panthers. Emile Uhnak added a goal for Elyria Catholic.