Poland tops Mooney in thriller to capture district title
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GREENFORD -- The top-seeded Poland Bulldogs girls' soccer team knew it couldn't take its opponent for granted in the Division III girl's district final Thursday night.
After all, that opponent was riding a three-game winning streak in the tournament.
The Bulldogs were able to fight off a stiff challenge by the fifteenth-seeded Cardinal Mooney Cardinals to capture a hard-fought 1-0 victory in the Akron 2 District title clash at South Range High School.
The victory improves the Bulldogs to 17-3 on the season. The Cardinals close the year with an 8-15-1.
The victory also helps erase a heart-breaking 3-1 loss to Kenston last year in the district finals. Now the Bulldogs will advance to face NE-8 rival Lakeview in a regional semi-final at Ravenna next Tuesday at 5:00 pm.
Lakeview defeated Waterloo 6-4 after penalty kicks.
"This is really, really big. This was our goal ever since we lost last season in the district final," sophomore forward Sophia Genralovich said. "This was a big goal of ours and it feels great."
Although the season came to an end for the Cardinals in the contest, they have a lot to be proud of on the season. They played a tough schedule that led to a very misleading seeding in the tournament and helped prepare them for the tournament competition.
"I think a lot of people underestimated us," Cardinals coach Angi Cvercko said. "We played a lot of DI and DII schools and so our record didn't show what we are capable of. So, coming into the DIII District, we knew it would be a little easier than what we played during the year, and it showed."
Both teams played solid defense punctuated by several good scoring chances in the first half as the Bulldogs booted a handful of long kicks that either sailed over the goal or bounced across the goal front. But neither team could find the back of the net as they played a scoreless first half.
"Our defense did an amazing job containing them," Cvercko remarked. "Our midfield did a great job of controlling, and up top, we had a lot of opportunities that we just didn't finish."
The loss for the Cardinals overshadowed a tremendous performance by their goaltender, freshman Sophia Dibo. She blocked 11 shots in the contest as they were outshot 12-6 in the contest.
"This is a position we put her in at the beginning of the year," Cvercko said. "She played defense and in goal, and she has just been a monster back there. She has done such a good job as a freshman to come out here and to do what she did tonight, it was an amazing job."
The Bulldogs would finally get on the scoreboard with what turned out to be the game-winning goal at the 37:37 mark of the second half on a solid kick by Generalovich. She raced down the right side of the field and kicked across the goal to find the back of the net.
"We were losing the middle, and I thought we needed to fix that so we made some adjustments to put more pressure up top," Bulldogs coach Neil Huda said about his second-half philosophy. "We kind of dropped back the last twelve minutes to play more of a defensive style to just try to hold them off."
The Cardinals battled to the end and thought they had tied the game at the 11:28 mark of the second half when Francesca Cassesse made a hard kick on goal. The ball would clank off the left upright and preserve the Bulldog's razor-thin 1-0 lead. Bulldogs' goaltender Leanne Williams would stop all 6 shots she faced to pick up the win.
"It stopped," Huda said with a laugh describing his heart. "I needed some CPR there. It was a great game. I thought it was going to be a good game and it was."