By Ted Waddell
LIBERTY — October 8, 2002 – It was damp and slick on the soccer field Friday afternoon, as the home team booters from Liberty battled the visiting Lady Blue Devils of Roscoe in a nagging drizzle.
After taking a 2-0 lead at the half, Liberty (2-2 league, 4-5 overall) came out a bit flat in the second half and watched Roscoe (1-3 league, 1-10 overall) score two rapid-fire goals to tie it up 2-2.
A few minutes later, Liberty scored the winning goal to edge the Lady Blue Devils, 3-2, as a few diehard soccer fans broke out the umbrellas to take refuge from the nasty weather as they cheered for their favorite teams.
Alyssa Thalmann started Liberty on the road to victory at 7:11 in the first half by putting one past Roscoe’s goalkeeper Danielle Sullivan on an assist by Erin Simpson.
The Lady Indians made it a 2-0 contest at the half at 31:20 as Chelsea LaGatutta scored on an assist by Thalmann.
In the opening minutes of the second half, Roscoe scored two almost back-to-back goals to tie it up.
At 6:20, Rosie Miesner fired a 40-yard direct kick past Lady Indians’ goalie Nicole Daurio, followed by Diana Failla scoring the short-lived game tying goal at the eight minute mark on an assist by Kendra Harris.
“It felt good to come back from a 2-0 deficit, and I got to roll in the mud,” said Roscoe’s Harris, a 16-year-old, striker of scoring the even-up goal.
“We’re learning, and that’s the most important thing,” she added. “We’re getting better as the season progresses.”
But in sports, as in life, fame is fleeting and the crown of glory changes hands in the blink of an eye.
At 15:15, Kate Yaun scored what proved to be the winning goal of the game on an assist by Katlyn DeMayo.
Asked her reaction to putting the Lady Indians over the top, Yaun replied, “It was great, and it was my first goal of the season. It was on a fast break, the goalie came out too late and I just popped it in there.”
Yaun, a 17-year-old senior left forward, is in her second year as a varsity booter.
Her view of the season? “We’re doing much better than people expected us to.”
Game stats: Shots on goal (Liberty 35, Roscoe 20); goalie saves (Liberty’s Daurio had 14, while Roscoe’s Sullivan had 16); corner kicks (Liberty 5, Roscoe 3).
Cliff Anderson, coach of the Lady Blue Devils, said it was a clean, hard-fought game on both sides of the slippery field.
“I think we played a different game when we came out in the second half,” he said. “In the beginning, I think they were kind of down at the way the season’s been going.”
In the wake of an early season game against girls’ soccer powerhouse Chester, Roscoe was left with four injured players. As the year wears on, the Lady Blue Devils are still dealing with the effects of not having those sidelined players.
Starting with Friday’s match, Anderson switched goalies. Sullivan replaced Chrissy Rosencranse in the cage, as the former keeper moved over to striker.
“I wanted to try something new, and it seems to be working,” said Anderson.
Roscoe’s newly-minted goalie said she tried out the cage for the first time during a practice session the day prior to going up against Liberty.
“It was very scary,” said Sullivan of at times being the final line of defense facing a determined Lady Indians’ attack.
“I’ll try to pull it together, and get the job done,” added the 17-year-old senior.
Liberty Coach John Lennon, said Roscoe caught his team “a little flatfooted” after the half, and things got “a little intense out there” as the home team battled back to a win.
“They were a little off the mark in the second half, but pulled themselves back together and put one in the net,” he said. “That was a good thing.”
Jamie Hopkins, a 17-year-old senior at Liberty, has been playing varsity soccer for three seasons.
“I thought it was good game, and Roscoe played hard,” she said. “They went for it and they really wanted it.”
Hopkins prediction for the rest of season?
“We’re going for the title,” replied the sweeper/striker with a net-wide grin that lit up a drizzly afternoon with a spark of youthful optimism.