Eastwood’s Karissa Nelson beats Lake goalkeeper Lauren Tobias just before scoring the game-winning goal in Wednesday’s district semifinal. (Nicholas Huenefeld | Sentinel-Tribune)
By Nicholas Huenefeld
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
GENOA — Karissa Nelson’s heroics helped lead the Eastwood girls soccer team to a 1-0 victory over Lake on Wednesday in a Division IV district semifinal at Genoa High School.
After the Eagles missed on several opportunities in a frustrating scoreless first half, Nelson beat Lake goalkeeper, Lauren Tobias, for what turned out to be the game-winning goal with 32:01 remaining.
“(Karly Wasserman) passed me a great ball through, split the back line,” Nelson said. “I was running onto it, and I saw the goalie come out at me. I started getting nervous. I took a touch around her, she dove, the goal was wide open for me. I hit it back post, and it went in.”
With the win, Eastwood (8-8-3) not only advances to the district final against Oak Harbor on Saturday at 3 p.m., but they handed Lake its first loss of the season by avenging a draw in the lone regular season matchup between the two programs, a meeting in which the Eagles let a late 2-1 lead slip away.
“That was not the outcome any of us wanted,” Eastwood’s senior goalkeeper Jordan Jensen said. “We wanted to beat them and win the league this year. After we couldn’t do that, we were like this is our revenge. It’s tournament time. This is the time that it matters. We wanted revenge on everyone.”
For the Flyers (13-1-3), the loss hurts, but coach Lauren Colangelo was proud of a team that helped a program overcome a 5-7-5 finish last year and win the Northern Buckeye Conference regular season crown for the first time since 2017.
“I think that this team will go down in history,” she said. “It’s (going to be) a (Lake) Hall of Fame team. They’re a great group of girls. They sparked something, and hopefully it ignites stuff for the future.”
In Wednesday’s first half, Eastwood had the wind at its back, but let several chances slip away.
Just 90 seconds in, Nelson hit the crossbar. Three minutes later, Piper Sutton’s shot went just wide. Karly Wasserman missed a straight-on look 20 minutes in on a nice cross from Nelson.
Wasserman had another chance on a rebound with 6:31 left, and she also had a one-on-one chance with 45 seconds left, but missed the ball on the attack, which allowed Tobias to save a shot seconds later.
Eastwood coach Julie Cross was happy with her team’s “resilience and grit” in maintaining its focus through those missed chances.
“We played really well in the first half, but we didn’t have anything to show for it on the scoreboard,” she said. “I told them we have them where we want them. The longer we can hold them off without scoring, the more confidence we’re going to build.
“There’s something to say about the adversity we’ve been through. We’ve gone down in games, or we’ve had to really work for goals. Really just playing defensively from front to back was our mindset.”
For Lake, sophomore Savannah Little earned NBC Player of the Year recognition after a 28-goal season. After scoring both goals against the Eagles in their first matchup, she was held scoreless on Wednesday after a strong defensive effort.
“That was a name we’ve said in practice all week,” Cross said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy shutting her down and preparing for her. I think No. 1 was having the respect that she is a phenomenal player.
“(Then, we tried to eliminate) the opportunities for people playing higher up on the field, trying to pressure the balls to not let it get to her, and the people around her not letting her turn and have those open shots.”
With 14:52 left in the first half, Jensen came out to boot away a potential chance for Little.
Then, with 2:31 left in the opening half, Little put a nice shot towards the goal past Jensen, who had come out again, but Eastwood’s Kennedy Ameling cleared the ball away at the last second as it trickled toward the front left corner of the goal.
In the second half, Little had a shot go barely wide right with 30:15 left, and her final shot with 22:10 left was saved by Jensen.
“We had two opportunities that I can think of that were left on the goal line,” Colangelo said. “We just didn’t capitalize on those. I think our opportunities were there. We just didn’t finish. When you have one player that has six people on them, it’s hard to generate anything.”
Prior to Nelson’s goal, Tobias prevented three potential chances for Eastwood in the first five minutes of the second half, stuffing a look from Wasserman in the opening 30 seconds, snatching a corner kick in traffic two minutes later, and saving a shot with 34:27 left.
After Nelson’s goal, Lake had four consecutive shots, but couldn’t capitalize.
Little had the shot that went wide. Another shot was then saved before a shot from Brooke Wiley went wide. Little’s shot on frame was the last of those four.
Lake’s final chance came with 4:29 remaining when a shot from Wiley was saved by Jensen, who also corralled a dangerous loose ball with 9:50 left.
“Instead of breaking it down into 40 minute halves, we broke it down into thirds,” Jensen said. “We played each 13 minutes at a time, stayed composed, stayed calm and let all of our nerves out.”
In doing so, Eastwood got its revenge for the regular season outcome.
“It means so much,” Nelson said. “After that game, we were down on ourselves. One practice at a time, we spent time getting our confidence back, working up to this moment to beat Lake. We knew we could do it. We went out there with confidence and it showed.”
The Flyers had not played since Oct. 2, which was when they defeated Maumee to clinch a share of the NBC title with Oak Harbor.
Colangelo didn’t think the layoff played a role in the outcome.
“I don’t know if it impacted us too much,” she said. “We were ready to play. We practiced well. The opportunities were there. We just didn’t find the back of the net.”
Eastwood, meanwhile, will look for a return trip to regional play on Saturday after a regular season that featured some ups-and-downs.
“I think we just had belief in ourselves,” Cross said. “From the last person on the bench to the top person on the field, the energy that we had on the bench and those girls cheering them on, everybody from front to back on the field buying into the game plan and being there when somebody made a mistake to step up for the next ball (all made a difference). I’m just super proud.”
