Avon Lake vs. North Olmsted on 10/9/13

It is always very difficult to beat a team on the road on its Senior Night.  The emotions are so amped up for the home team to win the game for the outgoing seniors.  Such was the environment that the Shoregals found themselves in on Wednesday night as they lost to North Olmsted by a score of 4-0.

North Olmsted wanted to win this game badly and came out with an unusual formation of 7 attacking offensive players to flood the Shoregal defense in hopes of scoring goals.  Avon Lake was able to fend off the Eagles for the first 7 minutes and then NO broke through on a goal by junior Erin Schloss off a crossing pass from senior Nicole Dembie.  A minute later NO struck again as senior Jennifer Janosek scored off of a corner kick from sophomore Madison Johnson.  After this, the Shoregal defense tightened and NO carried the 2-0 lead into the intermission.

In the second half, it was the Madison Johnson show as she scored the only two goals of the half.  The first coming as she gathered a loose ball close to the AL goal and fired it past the goalie and the second on a header from a free kick.  The Shoregal offense was very limited on this night as it managed only two shots on goal by Clare Adams and Bri Carlin.

In goal for North Olmsted was sophomore Emily Patterson who made two saves to earn the shutout.  For Avon Lake, three girls were called into duty in the nets for the match.  Starter Amy Crooks was injured in the first half diving after a loose ball and made two saves.  She was replaced by soph. Elise Duvall for the rest of the first half who stopped 3 shots.  Because Duvall had played both halves of the JV game, by rule she was only allowed one half in the Varsity game.  That forced AL to call upon emergency goalie Esther Killius to play the entire second half and she did so admirably making 4 saves.

In the JV game – what else but a shutout as Avon Lake and North Olmsted battled to a 0-0 draw.  The JV Shoregals impressively recorded their 11th shutout in 16 games this season as they finished with a 10-1-5 record having lost only to the Brecksville JVs.  It was also the 11th shutout of the season for soph. goalkeeper Elise Duvall.  We look forward to a number of these girls moving up to the Varsity next year.

Next up is tournament time as the Shoregals will be in action on Monday night 10/14 as Elyria pays a visit to ALHS Memorial Stadium for a 7:00 p.m. game.  The winner of this match will go on to play Magnificat in the next round.