ROMM PHOTOGRAPHY
Revere sophomore Marissa Milazzo battles CVCA senior Katie Cook for possession during Wednesday night's Kent Div. I District semifinal at Pappano Stadium. Revere won 2-1 in OT.
BATH TOWNSHIP, Ohio – When regulation time ended Wednesday night with Revere and Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy tied 1-1 in a Kent Division II District girls soccer semifinal, Minutemen senior captain Amy Feher was almost inconsolable.
Her team had statistically dominated the match, but now was in the precarious position of possibly losing on a golden goal.
Revere’s season and Feher’s career might end in an instant.
However the five-minute break before play resumed was put to good use. Feher collected herself and then reassured a Revere assistant coach, in effect, “I’ve got this.”
And then despite mounting frustration, she kept firing shots, through balls and crosses.
Finally, at 2:47 of the first overtime, Feher’s cross from the deep right corner found sophomore Marissa Milazzo, who redirected the ball past CVCA keeper Leslie Adams, for a 2-1 Revere victory and a berth in the district championship game against mighty Walsh Jesuit -- a 9-0 winner over Aurora on Wednesday.
“Amy is a special player,” first-year Revere coach David Howson said. “She wants to win everything. She wants to be involved in everything. And it’s great to have a player like that.
“She does get frustrated -- sometimes with herself, sometimes with her teammates. And what I’m trying to do is say hey, ‘If you’re getting frustrated, you’re not going to play your best game.’”
Feher, a University of Illinois recruit, was relentless.
“We’re lucky to have players of such quality to help support her,” Howson said. “Because if we don’t have that support for her, then she’s not going to play like she can do.”
Feher and Milazzo each have 19 goals this season.
“We have really good chemistry when we play together,” said Milazzo, already having made a verbal commitment to the University of South Florida.
Revere (13-2-3) finished with 22 shots on goal, including three off the frame, compared to seven for CVCA (13-6-0). Feher hammered two shots off the crossbar. During overtime, the margin was 6-0.
“In the overtime period, it was just a barrage,” CVCA coach Bob Adamov said. “There was great save after great save – even defensive saves when the keeper was out of position. It was a feeling of trying to get maybe the wind advantage in the second overtime period and get it to PKs.”
Adams, a senior, kept CVCA in the game and finished with 17 saves.
“In the last four to five weeks, she stepped into goal as a field player, never having played goalie before in her life,” Adamov said. “She just stepped up. She’s athletic. She’s smart. And once she knew she had to take the job, because our other goalie was injured, she gave it 100 percent. That’s all we could ask. She did an amazing job.”
Midway through the overtime, Feher laid motionless on the artificial turf for a couple of seconds after Adams had stopped yet another well-placed shot.
“The fact that their goalie was making saves like that was making me tense – I’m not going to lie,” the Revere captain said.
After a scoreless first half, Feher scored Revere’s first goal on a header at 38:30 of the second half, following a corner kick by senior Kristen Sawka.
“They were an extremely athletic, fast, skilled team,” Adamov said. “They were just passing the ball with precise and making great runs and we were just trying to keep track of them and not give up anything on a breakaway or a defensive breakdown.”
The Royals, seemingly overmatched, did not go quietly. On a rare push forward, senior Chelsea Smith raced to a 50-50 ball at about the penalty mark and became tangled up with a Revere defender. On second effort, Smith punched the ball into the back of the net with 17:46 left in the match.
“We were expected to lose to them, but that didn’t make us back down,” Adamov said. “We hung right with them. We knew we could surprise them.”
The last 15 minutes of regulation time provided extraordinary drama; however, neither team could score.
“The thing that worried me was we were coming so close so often, and it's games like that, you sometimes see the other team go down the field and sneak one,” Howson said. “We didn’t want to have that many shots and end up not winning the game.”
In the end, Feher would not be denied and for the second straight year the Minutemen have advanced to a district final
Kent Division II District
WALSH JESUIT 9, AURORA 0. At Cuyahoga Falls, junior Sandra Yu, sophomore Maddy Anzelc and freshman Juli Knapp each scored two goals as Walsh Jesuit (16-0-2) overwhelmed the visiting Greenmen in a district semifinal.
Next up for Walsh is Revere (13-2-3), a 2-1 winner over CVCA in overtime.
Rocky River Division II District
HOLY NAME 2, BUCKEYE 0. At Parma Heights, Erin O'Toole and Caroline Dreher scored for Holy Name (12-3-3). Holy Name keeper Julia Balodis was not required to make a save.
It marked the first game of the season on a turf field for Buckeye (12-6-0).
Brunswick Division II District
NORTON 2, MARLINGTON 1. At Copley Twp., Katie Nagy and Erica Allen each scored goals to rally the Panthers over the Dukes.
Click on the VIDEO icon above to see highlights of NORTON-MARLINGTON
Norton (10-6-0) moves on to Saturday's district final against Hoban, a 9-0 winner over Field.
Both of Norton's goals were scored in the second half after Marlington's Katie Reed scored in the first half to give the Dukes a 1-0 lead.
ARCHBISHOP HOBAN 9, FIELD 0. At Dowed Field in Akron, nine different players scored for the Knights (10-5-3) in a Brunswick Division II District semifinal win.
Hoban will meet Norton on Saturday for a dsitrict title.