Sharon Football Stadiumn 

Meadville 2 Sharon 1

The Lady Bulldogs improved their overall record to 3 wins and no losses as they defeated the Sharon Tigers 2 to 1 in double overtime with just 45 seconds remaining! I wasn't pleased with our overall performance, however I was thrilled to come away with a win. After 8 years coaching on that field with Cambridge Girls, Meadville Boys, and now my Meadville Girls for the third year, I've come to just accept that the Sharon game on their field is not what you are going to want to see from your team. The field at that stadium is not suited to for passing teams, it's narrow, and it's shorter than what we are used to playing on, and their boys and girls team do an excellent job with playing on it.

At the half, the score was tied 0 0. I told my girls we didn't play bad, we played good, but we were horrible with balls in the air. My midfield seemed to take it to heart, and began winning goalie punts in the air. With just seven minutes into the second half, off a skipped header, Liz Adams was able to find Lexie Benak with a through ball and we were up 1 0, and I though ok this is it!

However, just 40 seconds later, my defense hit a poor pass, then compounded it with a missed cleared ball, and Sharon's striker Abby McComb made us pay for our poor play. Just like that the game was dead locked at 1 1. Yet we were able to press on and continue to launch counter attack after counter attack, but we kept coming up short

We were able to find our outside midfielders Benak and Vidoni quite a bit today, but found ourselves being called offsides numerous times, when we've only be called off once the previous two games.. We are anxious to see game footage to see what was going on, and correct it before our next match against Erie on Monday. Both teams had opportunities to take the lead, and both teams kept having near misses. However, Meadville just was hitting the ball with any type of power today, again the field causes the ball to take some wierd bounces. 

The score stood at the end of regulation 1 1. In the first overtime, we had a wonderful set up by the Adams sisters, on an indirect kick. Karalyn was able to strike a rocket, but it was right at the keeper. Then, with three minutes left in the second overtime, Adams hit a wonderful ball to Alayna Zieziula, and the ball popped the net, but Alayna was called for offsides. It looked like it wasn't going to be our day to win. Then, with less than a minute to go Grace Cessna punted a ball that was headed/passed to Lexie Benak. Lexie's legs were like jello at that point because we kept making her beat the outside defender and crossing the ball. She was able to muster up on last outside attack and got the ball to Liz Adams who flicked it beautifully to our opposite mid fielder Faye Vidoni who put the ball away to give us the 2 1 win with just 45 seconds left in the second overtime.

Our hats went off to their goal keeper Katie Krecek, because she was gobbling everything up and not making mistakes. Our keepers did wonderful as well. Nicalettte Fuller had a shut out in the first half, and both Fuller and Cessna held Sharon scoreless in the over times. Nicalette recorded 12 saves while Cessna had 8. 

Meadville plays Erie on Monday at 630 pm at Barco Duratz field in Meadville

Score at half: 0 0

Score at the end of regulation 1 1

Meadville Goals:

Lexie Benak (assisted by Elizabeth Adams)

Faye Vidoni (assisted by Elizabeth Adams)

Sharon 

Abby McComb