By Ted Waddell
ELDRED — October 4, 2002 – In Wednesday’s nonleague girls’ varsity soccer game between the Lady Yellowjackets of Eldred (4-4) and the visiting Liberty Lady Indians (3-5), the home team booters put their best foot forward, as they defeated the visitors 2-0.
The unseasonably warm weather brought out swarms of nasty little black flies, and both squads along with the refs, swatted away to keep the pests at bay.
Jenna Fredericks scored for the Lady Yellowjackets at 7:50 in the first half on an open shot into the net.
At 38:36, Eldred’s Sara Thornton closed out the scorebook on a penalty kick.
According to Eldred Coach Laura Schneider, her policy is to let the “offended” player take the penalty kick, thus getting a chance for a little payback.
The second half was scoreless, as the opposing goalies swatted away shots at the net. – and more than a few black flies.
Match stats: Keeper saves (Eldred’s Jenny Haas 15, Nicole Daurio 9 for Liberty); shots on goal (Eldred 12, Liberty 17); corner kicks (Eldred 1, Liberty 4).
Daurio, a 17-year old-senior, has been playing varsity soccer for three years. She has played mostly in the goal cage, but with an occassional foray out onto the playing field.
“I thought we could have pushed a lot harder and wanted it more,” she said of the loss to the Lady Yellowjackets. “We definitely stepped down a notch.”
Her take on the season?
“It’s a lot better than our past seasons,” replied Daurio. “We’re stepping up a lot now, and we have a lot of seniors. Hopefully, we can win a lot more games.”
Liberty Coach John Lennon said it was a positive, well-played game for both teams.
“My girls played fairly aggessively, and the season is going well,” he said.
As a veteran wrestling coach, Lennon knows a fair amount about mental toughness – that thing called focus – and it shows in the way he looks at soccer.
“One of the toughest battles is keeping everybody focused as to where they want to be going,” he said. “Mentally, we’re up and down with with some mood swings . . . they really haven’t gelled into a solid mental state, but the play is excellent and they’ve really come around with their skills.”
“They have the raw talent to do it, it’s just whether they want to put it together and stay focused,” added Lennon. “I’d like to see us finish .500 and make the sectionals.”
Schneider said her team has been working on a couple of things in practice, skills that helped them shut out the oppostion on Wednesday. Tactics like passing the ball back to the halfbacks if the forwards get stuck in traffic and having good team communication on the field are among those practice lessons the Lady Yellowjackets utilized.
“We had different people score today,” she said. “Scoring-wise, it was an all-around game, and that makes me happy.”
First year varsity wing Ashley Cole, said of the Eldred soccer season, “We’re doing okay . . . I thought the game went well.”
Sixteen-year-old 11th grader Roberta Wolff is in her third year on varsity, and is one of the Lady Yellowjacket quad-captains. (Kelly Brodmerkel, Haas and Lauren Timan are the other team captains).
After the win, the left halfback proved she’d been paying attention at practice.
“I thought well we worked well as a team,” said Wolff. “We passed the ball upfield and we talked to each other.”
“We have a young team with only one senior (Brodmerkel),” added Wolff. “We have a lot of new people up on varsity, and I think we’re doing well.”