Gallery by Heather Belcher
Battles between two evenly matched teams are often decided by a critical play or two.
That was the case Tuesday night at Paul Cline Stadium in the Class AAA girls Region 3 soccer championship between rivals Woodrow Wilson and George Washington.
In the end, defending AAA state champion Patriots made a couple of more plays than the Flying Eagles to garner a 2-0 win.
“I am very proud of them. This was a hell of a game tonight,” George Washington head coach Ali Sadeghian said. “Excellent game by Woodrow (Wilson). A great coaching staff and a wonderful job. We fought to the last second. Both teams played their hearts out and hats off to them. We are very fortunate.”
The Flying Eagles entered the contest confident that they could dethrone the Patriots after dropping a 1-0 match during the regular season.
“It was very even tonight. Their speed got us up-top. The back line held their own and overall my girls did what we talked about,” Woodrow Wilson head coach Julie Agnor said. “We pressed and we cut angles. We attacked every ball. There for a while I thought we had worn them down.”
Unfortunately for Woodrow Wilson, it was the opposite having to battle the fast paced Patriots and their quick counter attacks.
“They had good counter attacks on us and that wore us down a bit. We are not used to that quick comeback,” Agnor said. “They were faster. We have a few speedsters and they shut down our speedsters. When (our speedsters) got the ball, they had three (defenders) on them. That was hard to overcome. Their speed wore us down.”
The match went the half scoreless, but midway through the second half, GW finally found the openings with its speed.
The sophomore tandem of Reese Huffman to Deryn Doamekpor connected to give the Patriots a 1-0 lead.with 19:30 to play in the match.
After watching his dynamic strikers be frustrated for most of the night, Sadeghian preached patience to his team.
“We had multiple chances, but I told the girls to stay calm, stay in the game and don’t panic. Hopefully it will happen. Finally we got a breakaway and scored a couple of goals on them,” Sadeghian said. “Deryn got upset with herself for missing a couple of the chances and some fouls on her. I told her to stay focused and not to worry about it.”
After holding serve for so long and not being able to score on its end, the goal was tough on Woodrow Wilson to swallow.
“We did a lot of maintaining control of the ball and with that we didn’t attack. I think after the first goal it deflated us a little bit,” Agnor said. “The way we played is not reflected on the scoreboard. Overall we held our own. I would never hang my head or be disappointed in these girls. They left everything on the field.”
Senior all-stater Ava Trethewey, who will be heading to Marshall to play soccer, capped the scoring for GW with just over 13 minutes to play on an assist from Huffman.
“This is what the championship game is supposed to be,” Sadeghian.
George Washington earned the No. 3 seed in the girls state tournament which starts Nov. 4 at Paul Cline Stadium.
The Patriots will play No. 2 seed Parkersburg South following the game between No. 1 Morgantown and No. 4 Hedgesville. The opening game will start at 5 p.m.
