Cougars shut down by Antelopes in Class 2A semifinals
Yough’s Hannah Biros looks to take the ball away from an Avonworth attacker during Wednesday’s WPIAL Class 2A semifinal.
By DEAN DELLAMALVA JR.
MVI Sports
For nearly 38 minutes, the ninth-seeded Yough girls soccer team was on its heels despite holding its own at No. 5 Avonworth in the WPIAL Class 2A semifinals.
Two late first-half goals, however, propelled the Antelopes into the WPIAL finals with a 3-0 victory Wednesday night at Lenzner Field.
Avonworth (14-1-1) will face North Catholic, which was a 2-1 winner over Shady Side Academy, noon Saturday at Gateway.
Avonworth’s Ava Wert and Eden Schleis tallied goals with the first half clock dwindling down. Until that point, the Cougars kept the Antelopes at bay despite dominating play throughout.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to do all year, keep the ball and take our opportunities when they present themselves,” Antelopes coach J.C. Mahan said. “I think we were able to do that today. Yough was a little more suppressed and I know we’ve struggled with that earlier in the year.”
Packing it in on defense was the plan for the Cougars (11-5) in hopes of taking advantage of frustrating Avonworth.
Yough had trouble all night getting any type of offense, however, managing just one shot that missed the goal wide right.
“(Avonworth) is a very good team, the plan for today was to defend and counter,” Yough coach Dann Appolonia said. “We knew they had a lot of good players and we absolutely could not get into a track meet.
“For the first 38 minutes, it worked. We were forcing long shots, not giving up high quality chances and there were a couple times where we countered and almost got something. The gameplan was to get outshot, 10-2, but win 1-0.”
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