Warsaw Girls Soccer: Redemption Not On Their Minds
WARSAW – A year ago, Warsaw girls soccer skipper Peter Lucht was nearly speechless. Fast forward a year on the calendar, and it was his players saying nothing.
Choosing to not bring up the agonizing loss to Culver Academy in last year’s sectional championship, the Warsaw players went out and exorcised some demons with their heads and feet. A 3-2 win by Warsaw over Culver Academy Tuesday night in the opening match of the Warsaw Girls Soccer Sectional was all the girls needed to hear.
“I have no idea,” noted Lucht if he had heard his players mentioning the 2015 loss. “I heard once this week about it from them, but not more than that. We had to be tough and go out there, and give 100 percent heart and mentally we had to be in there, too.”
Those who took in the 2015 match may have felt they had seen this game before. Culver Academy took a 1-0 lead in the 20th minute when Addison Coy had her first shot blocked by Warsaw keeper Kaylee Patton, only for the carom to bounce to her feet, the tuck in good the second time around.
Warsaw would answer back with two goals in a span of nine minutes. In the 25th minute, build up on the left side of the pinched Culver defense gave Brenna Buhrt space to distribute. Abby Steffensmeier broke through the corner of the vacancy and hit a nifty one-touch past keeper Hannah Fisher for the equalizer, Steffensmeier’s 15th goal of the year.
The same type of play formulated in the 34th, as Delaney Taylor – who drew double and triple teams all night – got open behind Culver’s defense. Instead of trying the low percentage shot from the corner, Taylor lofted a ball to the goal face, where Anna Grill dove in for a header. Tigers up 2-1 on a record-setting assist from Taylor, who notched her 14th of the campaign to tie both Liz Van Wormer and Hannah Cutshall’s season totals.
Seven minutes after the break, Buhrt again found a runner in space, this time Taylor, who made the necessary cut to the inside and rocketed a shot past Fisher top shelf for her 16th goal of the year. The 3-1 lead mirrored what Warsaw held on the Academy in last year’s final, only for Culver to punch back and tie the match 4-4 on that fateful day.
Culver put its second goal on the board in the 72nd minute when Heather Macnab took a free kick from about 25 yards. The left-footed charge swerved around the Warsaw wall and into an unprotected netting as Patton slipped recognizing the path of the sidewinder.
There would be no overtime or penalty shootout, however, as the Eagles would take the match’s final four shots and a desperation corner in the final 35 seconds, only for the ball to be cleared into the waning darkness.
The Academy would outshoot Warsaw 16-11, but the Tigers got 10 saves from Patton and Dayle Harvey added three blocked shots, one almost surely heading to an open corner in the 38th minute off a Coy shot. Patton also made a point-blank save of a Korryn Brewer shot in the 60th minute, Brewer choosing to go low right into Patton’s wingspan rather than an open corner.
Warsaw (14-4) advances to Thursday’s sectional semi-final against Plymouth (7-6-2). Wawasee (5-12) and NorthWood (6-7-2) open Thursday’s play with the first semi-final at 5 p.m.
“When we played (Plymouth) early in the year, we got a lot of opportunities,” Lucht said of the rematch with Plymouth, a match Warsaw won 2-1 on Aug. 23. “We need to really focus on our finishes, and not get out-physicaled.”