NATHAN SWANSON
Special to The Leader
The Fredonia women’s soccer team pulled off an extraordinary triumph Sept. 9 against Utica University, winning, 3-2, in the opening game of the Blue Devil Classic. This game was intense and physical.
The game came down to a free kick In the last two minutes of play. Fredonia’s Grace Auer scored off of a free kick from the side of the field. It looked like it was going across the line of players and appeared to be a long shot. But somehow, some way it went right over everybody and into the back of the net.
The crowd was electric and the team was almost in disbelief.
Grace Auer said, “We couldn’t have asked for a better finish. Our goal keeper Sabrina really pulled through, and without the defense we wouldn’t have been able to score that goal.”
In the first game, Utica had constant offensive pressure with a run-and-gun pace. But less than five minutes into the game, Kayleigh Daniels scored Fredonia’s first goal, assisted by Jordan Barrett. After that, Fredonia pulled all of the strings and dominated the first half.
Kendall Sexton shut down Utica’s Ro Hernandez. Hernandez was easily the fastest player on the field, and attempted 5 of Utica’s 18 shots. The defense began to get an idea of the best players Utica had, and continued to apply pressure. In the first half, Fredonia was flawless defensively. Utica responded with physicality and both teams battled it out.
There were constant stoppages during the match for injuries. Slide tackles, head injuries, leg kicks and body slams resulted from scrambling for the ball.
Utica’s coach Brooke Barbuto was extremely vocal about what she felt were a “no call” concerning a slide tackle which had no contact with the ball. On the contrary, Fredonia’s coach, Chris Case, was less vocal about calls from the officials and motivated his team with positive reinforcement, essential play calls, and picking out the patterns that Utica was showing.
This communication amongst the Fredonia players,and coach Case led Fredonia to their second goal, scored by Bri Grazen, at minute 16 of the first half.
The game took a wild turn in the second half when Utica scored back-to-back goals in the second half, minutes apart from each other. Both goals came from Utica’s Rylee Lamphere. Fredonia’s defense began to break down and it had a hard time keeping the ball out of its zone.
The second half was a tough battle, but Fredonia goalie Sabrina Suriani kept making save after save to make sure Utica could not get the upper hand.
Suriani said, “We struggled with stepping to the other team with speed and we gave them a lot of time off the ball … In order to fix that, we found ways to talk together, step up quicker, and get more organized, and exploit their defense so we could score.”
The following day, Fredonia tied Ithaca College, 2-2, to secure the championship in their annual tournament.