High School Sports

Howland tops Harding, 5-1

WARREN -- Howland began slow Tuesday evening, but the Tigers' girls soccer team eventually overpowered Warren G. Harding in a 5-1 beatdown at Mollenkopf Stadium.

After a less-than-ideal start for Howland in which the Raiders took on the role of the aggressors, the Tigers took the lead a little more than seven minutes into the match on an Ava Boothe goal from about 20 yards out. The opening goal seemed to calm down the Tigers, whose Grace Villwock added another 30 seconds later after a through pass by Ava Yannucci.

"Once we scored, I think we settled down a little bit and started to be better under the pressure and deal with the pressure better," Howland head coach Greg Mitchell said. "But they definitely came out the gates blazing to come at us, and I give them a lot of credit for that."

Howland goalkeeper Taylor Fairchild, who Mitchell remarked was crucial in Tuesday's victory, dove to save a pair of free kicks by Harding midfielder Sophia Gardner in the first 20 minutes of the first half.

Natalie James, Harding's goalkeeper, lifted her own team moments later when she managed to keep out a well-placed penalty kick.

The penalty kick came about after a Harding defender took down Boothe, Howland's leading goalscorer, on the right side of the box. Boothe laid on the turf for several minutes before being helped to the sidelines with an apparent ankle injury.

"Anytime you lose a kid like that, it is going to be a loss," Mitchell said of Boothe, who did not return to Tuesday's match. "She brings a lot of energy to the table up front for us, and speed."

Despite her best efforts, James, who missed Harding's previous match with an injury, could not keep everything out of the back of the net Tuesday, as the Tigers bombarded her with shots on goal. As part of the offensive onslaught, Howland's Madison Schmitz and then Villwock, with her second goal of the match, increased the Tigers' lead to four by halftime.

"Natalie's excellent," Harding head coach Kevin Brown said. "She's probably one of the best goalkeepers in the area, saves PKs. I don't want to jinx it, so I'm not gonna give her (save) percentage, but she's just amazing. I would put her up against any goalkeeper in the area. Just when you're getting shot on 15 times, there's bound to be some good ones that are gonna go in."

Following the break, nothing much changed on the scoreboard. Daniella Pagano scored Howland's fifth goal of the match 12-and-a-half minutes into the second half, but Gardner managed to respond with her team-best fourth goal of the season.

Gardner, whose activity and on-ball skill caused issues for Howland's midfield throughout the match, lofted a ball just over the outstretched arms of Fairchild from nearly 25 yards out to make it a 5-1 scoreline with 13:21 remaining.

"She controls the center for us," Brown said of Gardner. "She likes to distribute the ball, but when she gets an open shot, she likes to take it. ... She's a leader on the field. It's like having another coach out there."

Although Howland continued to pressure and make James work within the posts, the score stayed the same at the final whistle.

After the match, Mitchell heavily praised the Raiders.

"I thought this was probably the best Warren Harding team we've seen since my time here," Mitchell said. "Hard-working team with some athleticism and [they] just physically compete. And they have some players with some skill to go along with it as well."

Similarly, Brown called Howland's coaching staff one of the best in the area and said the Raiders knew Villwock, Howland's star winger, would present a major "problem" for Harding.

"I think four of their five goals were initiated from the outside, and she either cut in and scored a couple, or she passed it off to somebody else to score. But either way, she was the catalyst for the team, and she just exposed us," Brown said of Villwock.

With the victory, the Tigers improve to 4-2 on the season and 1-0 in the All-American Conference. The win serves as a much-needed bounceback after a 6-1 defeat against GlenOak on Saturday.

Harding (3-2, 0-1) will face GlenOak in its next game; the Raiders will host the undefeated Golden Eagles this Saturday.

Howland returns to action with another AAC game next Monday when the Tigers visit Austintown Fitch.

Have an interesting story? Contact Preston Byers by email at pbyers@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @PresByers.