Perrysburg girls claim 3rd straight district soccer title

10/28/2012

FINDLAY — If the word dom­i­na­tion can be used as an un­der­state­ment, Per­rys­burg’s girls soc­cer team cer­tainly found a way to un­der­mine it Satur­day af­ter­noon.

The Yel­low Jack­ets had no prob­lem win­ning their third con­sec­u­tive Divi­sion I dis­trict cham­pi­on­ship as they were a 7-0 win­ner over Ash­land (9-7-2) in Graham Me­mo­rial Sta­dium.

“It feels great. The kids re­ally did a good job,” said Per­rys­burg co-head coach Mar­ga­ret Ber­nard. “We had great play across the board from all the play­ers on our ros­ter.”

Per­rys­burg, which im­proved to 19-0, will play fa­mil­iar North­ern Lakes League foe An­thony Wayne in the re­gional semi­fi­nal this week at Bowl­ing Green State Univer­sity’s Cochrane Sta­dium. The spe­cific date and time are to be de­cided later due to bad weather which is fore­cast for this week, ac­cord­ing to Find­lay dis­trict tour­na­ment di­rec­tor Jon Am­mons.

Last sea­son, Per­rys­burg was a 1-0 loser to Northview in the re­gional semi­fi­nal.

“We mean busi­ness,” said Yel­low Jack­ets co-head coach Jorge Diaz. “We came here and said we’ve got to go out there and be ef­fi­cient.

“At the be­gin­ning of the game we had a cou­ple of op­por­tu­ni­ties that we could have put on goal that we didn’t,” he added. “Then we kind of set­tled down and let it go.”

Per­rys­burg, the No. 1-ranked team in the state, recorded its goals from a va­ri­ety of play­ers.

Maddy Wil­liams led the charge with two goals and two as­sists, while Court­ney Clody, Beth Glow­acki, Allex Brown, Josie Fowler, and Lucy Wal­ton all also added goals for the Yel­low Jack­ets.

“Our of­fense is very pow­er­ful. We did a good thing to­day,” said Diaz.

Per­rys­burg got off to a quick start when Clody cap­i­tal­ized on a touch pass in front of the goal from Wil­liams, giv­ing the Yel­low Jack­ets a 1-0 lead just 3:59 into the game.

The Yel­low Jack­ets took a re­mark­able 25 shots in the first half, with 15 be­ing on goal. Other than Clody’s open­ing goal, Per­rys­burg strug­gled to fin­ish in the net un­til the fi­nal 7:23 of the open­ing half.

In that span, the Yel­low Jack­ets scored four times, build­ing a 5-0 half­time lead, all but end­ing any hope for Ash­land as Per­rys­burg had al­lowed just five goals all sea­son com­ing into the game.

“It’s re­ally awe­some,” said Wil­liams. “This year, we’re just such a tight-knit team, and we had to come in here know­ing that this was go­ing to be the hard­est game we played all year.

“We were fo­cused the whole bus ride here, the whole warm-up, and that re­ally helped play.”

Per­rys­burg held an un­fath­om­able 43-4 shot ad­van­tage over the Ar­rows, a credit to the Yel­low Jack­ets de­fense, ac­cord­ing to goal­keeper Chloe Buehler.

“They did awe­some,” Buehler, who made three saves, said of the de­fense. “They passed awe­some and switched the field re­ally well. It makes my job even eas­ier.”

And now that Per­rys­burg has an­other dis­trict crown un­der its belt, the team is ready to ad­vance even fur­ther.

“We want to make new mem­o­ries on that field and make it to re­gional fi­nals,” Buehler said.