By Rob Potter
MIDDLETOWN — November 2, 2010 — The 2010 soccer season came to a shocking and disappointing end for the Livingston Manor Lady Wildcats.
No. 2 seed John A. Coleman Catholic High School upset No. 1 Manor, 2-0, on Saturday afternoon in the Section IX Class D championship match at Faller Field in Middletown.
Junior forward Kate Shults scored both goals for Coleman (3-11-1), which will play the Section XI Champion on Nov. 9 in a first-round state tournament match.
With 7:55 remaining in the first half, Shults momentarily froze Lady Wildcats’ goalkeeper Kiera Browne with a shot from about 15 yards away. The shot hugged the inside of the goalpost and settled into the corner of the net.
After moving past two Manor defenders, Shults scored on a low shot from 10 yards out to give the Lady Statesmen a 2-0 lead with 33:03 left in the second half.
While Shults led the Lady Statesmen on offense, junior goalie Kate Davis paced the team’s defense. Davis made 20 saves in the game, while Browne had one save for Manor.
“Our regular season definitely prepared us for today’s match,” Coleman Coach Dave Jutton said. “We played a tough schedule in the MHAL. Every school we played was bigger than us.”
Jutton noted that his team changed its strategy on defense in order to shut down the Lady Wildcats.
“We have been a pretty defensive-minded team all season,” he said. “We usually play a lot of man-to-man defense. But today we mixed in some zone defense with the man-to-man and it worked very well.”
Jutton praised Shults by saying that “she is our offense.
“Of the 14 goals we scored this season, she had 12 of them,” he said. “She’s a great athlete and a phenomenal soccer player.”
Manor Coach Shirlee Davis also lauded Shults.
“She scored both of their goals, played good defense and took some goal kicks,” Davis said. “Doing all of those things just shows that she is a great player.”
Manor (13-4) spent much of the match in the Coleman end of the field. The Lady Wildcats had 31 shots on goal and nine corner kicks, but could not get the ball into the net.
While Kate Davis stopped many of the Manor shots, some of them rolled just a foot or two wide of the goal cage. One of the Lady Wildcats’ best opportunities to score occurred with about 9:00 left in the contest. Paige Clancy had control of the ball about 10 yards in front of the goal cage and kicked a hard shot towards the corner of the net. But Kate Davis quickly moved to her left and used both of her hands to deflect the ball away from the goal.
“It was very frustrating because we had the ball in the Coleman half of the field so much,” Shirlee Davis said. “But I am very proud of our players. They gave it 100 percent for the entire game. They were trying very hard to score a goal right up until the last second of the game.”
Shirlee Davis was also very pleased with the Lady Wildcats’ regular season, which included winning the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association (OCIAA) Division VI title.
“We had an outstanding season,” she said. “We played a lot of tough teams and had a lot of good wins.
“We had six seniors on the team this season,” Davis continued. “And those seniors were all over the field – at forward, midfield, defense and goalkeeper. They did a great job of leading their teammates all season and we are really going to miss them next year.”
Those six Manor seniors who played their final scholastic soccer match on Saturday are Christine Babich, Kiera Browne, Paige Clancy, Marissa Diescher, Victoria Taggart and Angela Zayas.