Bay’s Kristen Hazlett, left, goes up for a header along with Rocky River’s Lindsey Mikula in last week’s sectional championship game at River. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Pirates finish strong, claim first league crown
By Jim Horvath
Sports
Published Oct. 22, 2008

For the Rocky River girls soccer team, a slow start and a broken leg have been transformed into something nobody could have imagined.

How about the program’s first league championship and a sectional crown?

The Pirates of head coach Patrick Hopkins finished 6-1 in the West Shore Conference to earn a share of the league title with Bay and Avon. Last week, River got its second-straight win over Bay, 1-0, to win the sectional tournament championship.

This past Monday, the Pirates advanced to the district level in Division I as they took on top-seeded Westlake in a semifinal game. The winner of that game would play the winner of the North Olmsted-Magnificat contest in the district championship game.

“This was the first time we’ve left the field in a tournament game with Bay and we weren’t the team crying,” said Hopkins of last week’s win over the Rockets.

Senior sweeper Emily Maurer scored off a corner kick by senior Katie Kilgore with 25 minutes remaining for the only goal of the game. The Pirates had a number of missed opportunities in the second half, but wound up getting the one they needed.

“It was a game of two halves,” said Hopkins. “Bay came out hard in the first half, and our goalie, Lauren Davis, came up big and made a couple of beautiful saves.

“We made a few adjustments at halftime, and they didn’t get a lot of quality shots against us in the second half. If they would have scored a goal on us in the first half, though, it may have been a different story,” he said.

Hopkins said the play of senior Justine Beres helped River control the ball at midfield, and that Davis, a junior, had done a fine job since replacing starting goalie Kim Leitch last month.

Leitch, a freshman, broke her leg in the final minutes of the Vermilion game on Sept. 17. While he lost his goalie, Hopkins felt the season took a turn for the better the rest of the way.

“Kim came out to stop a shot and there was a collision,” said Hopkins. “It was nobody’s fault, just a hard play. She’s a tough kid, and her surgery went well. She’ll be back stronger than ever next season.

“But I’d say that was actually the turning point of our season,” he said. “The next day, the team got together and decided they wanted to make a run at it. It was a great turnaround, because up to that point we were playing around .500 ball. Lauren came up to me a volunteered to take over for Kim. She’s not really a goalie, but she did play some in a backup role last year.

“We wound up with nine shutouts on the season, and that was great. I think the school record for shutouts is nine, so Kim and Lauren combined to get that done,” he said.

The team stepped up despite adversity a number of times throughout the season, said Hopkins. A 3-2 loss to Lakewood was followed by a 0-0 tie against Magnificat, a team that had defeated them 8-0 two years ago in tournament play.

The Pirates were up, 2-1, against Chagrin Falls but wound up settling for a 2-2 tie. They rebounded with a 2-0 win over Oregon Clay, giving that team its only loss of the season. Then a 2-1 win over Bay put them in a position to get a share of the league title.

“We’ve only beaten Bay three times in the history of our program,” said Hopkins. “Now we have two in one season. Since I’ve been here, the games have been close. We’ve had 1-0 leads at the half, only to lose the game in the end.

“The kids kept getting closer and closer, and it was just a matter of time before they broke through,” he said. “This year, we came out and took care of it.”