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Downey, LaBrae quickly reach soccer milestone

LEAVITTSBURG – The numbers don’t lie, and yet still, LaBrae High School girls soccer coach Diane Downey insists she didn’t earn her 100th career victory last week.

Nope, it wasn’t Downey, who started soccer at LaBrae 10 years ago. She might have been on the sideline, but it was the program itself that reached the century mark following a win over Struthers.

“It was for our program,” Downey said. “I’ve been here the whole time and started the program, so our whole program was the one that got the 100 wins.”

The Vikings have made a rather steep climb, starting from nothing and now a viable contender in the Blue Tier of the All-American Conference on an annual basis. They’re 7-3-3- this year, including 5-2-1 in the AAC, and are coming off a district final appearance in 2015 (a narrow 1-0 defeat to Champion). The Vikings seem headed in the right direction.

“It’s definitely taken a lot of work, but the girls have put in a lot of work to realize (this),” Downey said. “I constantly go back and say, ‘You won’t believe what I started with’ because we just didn’t have the girls to what we have now. I see a big improvement in the program and girls working hard to make us better every year.”

Downey’s tenure has only seen a few bumps in the road as LaBrae has endured just two non-winning seasons in her 10 years.

The Vikings were 6-7-1 in her first year, but they progressed immediately, going 10-6-2 in the program’s second season. The development continued each year, and the Vikings eventually reached the point they’re at now.

LaBrae is 53-15-8 over the last three-plus seasons. The Vikings’ best year was 2015, when they went 14-3-2 and were the No. 2 seed in the Division III district tournament. They earned wins over Waterloo and third-seeded Rootstown before suffering the one-point loss to the Golden Flashes.

Downey said she started building the youth programs before initiating the varsity team, which is why LaBrae was able to compete so quickly.

“This year we’re actually low on numbers,” she said. “It’ll go in spurts, and we have a lot of strong eighth-graders coming up. They’ve played together a lot and have done well. Yeah, it does (start with the younger programs). I work with the youth program a lot to see what the numbers are like and go down to watch their games and help some of their coaches out down there.”

The attention to detail has worked well for Downey. Since that first season, a 9-9 mark in 2011 is the Vikings’ worst record. She’s 100-53-15 over 10 seasons. This year’s group is 7-3-3, even despite a roster of just 16 players (just five bench players). They endeared themselves to Downey, like so many other teams have, with a surprising gift after their coach reached the 100-win plateau following the Struthers game.

“They made me a banner, and it had all my different teams on there,” Downey said. “It’s been nice to see the program grow over the years. Starting from a club team and going with those girls all the way up now to 10 years. It’s been fun.”

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