On The Rebound

Seward Puts Stinging Loss To Tuxedo In Rearview Mirror With Rhythmic Romp Over Tri-Valley; Lady Spartans and Lady Bears Slated To Play In Sectional Opener As Seward Looks To Begin Another Storied Postseason Run; Loyas Edges Closer To 100-Career Goal Milestone; Stam Scores The Hat Trick

S.S. Seward 7, Tri-Valley 0

By RICHARD A. ROSS

rross@sportsinsightsny.com

Scenes from a sectional preview between Tri-Valley and S.S. Seward (Clockwise): T-V's Vicky Tingley throws the ball in. Tri-Valley seniors Rachel Adriaans, Sarah Schneyer, Hope Costa and Erin Smith. Rachel Adriaans leaps as she looks to control the ball. Seward's Sinead Brosnan moves ahead as she is marked by T-V's Colleen Jones, T-V's Mareena DiMilia sends the ball forward.Gladys Loyas sends in a corner kick. Vicky Tingley begins a run up the sideline as she is pursued by Seward's Allison Morgan. Danielle Stam works to move the ball between T-V's Kaitlynn Greffrath and Megan Tyndell, Gladys Loyas sends the ball by Sarah Coney and Seward's Cassi Martin and T-V's Kaitlynn Greffrath vie for a ball.

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY—“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” goes the oft-quoted line.

Imagine then the pent-up rage of a dozen or more young females who have felt their honor compromised and beware of the revenge they vow to exact.

I’m referencing here the damaged egos of the S.S. Seward Lady Spartans from a stinging defeat the prior day to league rival Tuxedo. The resultant impact would fall first on guiltless Tri-Valley as the orange-clad whirlwind vowed to get the wind back in their sails for the coming “C” wars by playing their special brand of soccer with a renewed fervor.

Seward senior striker Danielle Stam scores the first of her three goals on the day as the ball veers by Erin Smith just over four minutes into the game.

For the immensely talented Lady Spartans of S.S. Seward, it wasn’t their first loss of the season, a 3-0 blanking to Class A Goshen on October 18 in the Middletown Tournament that got the girls from the storied program and their iconic coach Joe DiMattina  in a tizzy.

Rather it was the stunning 5-3 league loss to Tuxedo on October 25 that turned the Orange Crush into the temporarily crushed orange.

To say that DiMattina and his girls were disappointed by the defeat which marred their up-to-then undefeated league record would be a ridiculous understatement.

In their two prior outings, the Lady Spartans had shut out the Lady Tornadoes to the tune of 4-0 in their first league set-to on October 11 and to the harmonious strains of 5-0 in the consolation game of the Middie Tourney.

They say it’s tough to beat a team three times in a season and that may be true. But when you come from a pedigree like Seward’s where success is far more the rule than the exception, such adages seem rather irrelevant  as applied to a school  that has won ten straight Section Nine girls soccer titles, seven of which have come since DiMattina’s arrival in 2004 from Tuxedo (no less).

Moreover, Seward has reached the state final four every year under his watch and won state championships in 2007 and 2008.

Tri-Valley's Collen Jones passes the ball to Rachel Adriaans in one of the instances that the Lady Bears were heeding Coach Mary Feusner's counsel to keep the passes short.

So what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Consequently, losing to Tuxedo may not be the worst thing for Seward, the Institute of impeccable consistency in the realm of athletic excellence, but rather an infusion of a jolting tonic that will get Seward right back on track. Time will tell.

Tri-Valley had the daunting task of trying to contain Seward, while attempting to author a viable attack that would put some pressure on the defending champs.

To get them the day after their loss to Tuxedo was an unfortunate case of bad timing if they wanted to reverse the tone of their prior 7-0 loss to Seward on September 19 down in the cornfield, the very place they are slated to play them as sectionals begin on October 29.

Having recently garnered a sectional berth by dint of their then 8-7 league mark with a win over Fallsburg, T-V locked up the bottom seed in the Class C dance and drew  number-two Seward for the coming sectional opener.

Millbrook is the top seed, Seward’s opponent in the sectional finals the past two years. The Lady Spartans advanced to regional play by getting past the Lady Blazers with one-goal wins in 2009 and 2010.

This was senior day for Tri-Valley, playing its last home game of the season. Rachel Adriaans, Sarah Schneyer, Hope Costa and Erin Smith posed for a group shot before they and then all the other Lady Bears got to hand flowers to their loved ones. That took place at halftime and the girls were all smiles despite being down 5-0 to Seward at that juncture.

Intimidated perhaps by the aura surrounding Seward, T-V had spent far too much time watching rather than running to the ball. Its offensive runs were few and far between, and rarely sustained. Credit Seward’s fine defensive prowess sustained by its flat four back line defense  for that ,and its fine passing skills that enabled them to reverse the polarity of the ball once they had wrested control of it mostly in the midfield.

When the Lady Bears did get a speedy run up the sideline by either Mareena DiMilia, Kaitlynn Greffrath or Rachel Adrianns, rarely was there someone positioned in the box to take the cross. To put it succinctly, Tri-Valley’s hesitancy was making it look easy for Seward despite the repeated admonitions of Coach Mary Feusner.

Gladys Loyas had two goals on the day, bringing this season's total to 34 as the leading scorer in Section Nine. Coupled with 60 goals amassed over the past three years, including 31 a year ago, 26 as a freshman and three as a defensive eighth grader, the talented potential Olympian is just six shy of the 100-goal career miletsone formerly reached by Lady Spartans Theresa Space and Jillian Collova.

Seward senior standout Danielle Stam and Elizabeth Gorshack immediately marshaled control of the ball in the T-V end.

At 4:30 in Stam sent one by T-V’s agile keeper Erin Smith on an assist from Gorshack.

Seward nearly had another goal on a corner kick from Gladys Loyas as Sinead Brosnan just missed a chance in the box.

At ten minutes in Stam struck again to make it 2-0.

At 19:10 in it was junior Alyssa McLaughlin’s turn as she scored off a jumble in front of the box following yet another Seward corner kick. Trailing 3-0 just about halfway through the first half, T-V tried to fight back.

Their physical intensity was there but they were missing that kind of aggressive edge they marshal against teams they know they can beat.

Smith had a nice save on a shot by Brosnan just past the 20-minute mark. By game’s end she’d tally 16.

“Where are we on the attack?” barked T-V Coach Mary Feusner. “We’re standing around and watching!”

Tri-Valley’s first viable run soon came about resulting in a shot by Sarah Coney. Heather Fraser hung on for the save.

Stam picked up her third goal on an assist from Loyas at 33:00 minutes in. It was her 22^nd of the season. For her part, Loyas had five shots in the first half, none of which found their mark. She’d alter that in the second period.

Just one minute after Stam’s latest strike, Brosnan scored to make it five-zip.

That would be it for first half scoring as Seward had outgunned Tri-Valley 27-1 enroute to a 31-4 margin in shots on goal by game’s end.

Loyas got on the board at 28:24 of the second period on the first of two unassisted goals.  Those two goals gave her 34 this season, which coupled with her 60 which she amassed over the past three season leaves her just six goals shy of the 100-goal milestone.  She would be the third Lady Spartan to reach that storied achievement, following in the footsteps of Theresa Space (157 goals) and Jillian Collova  (119 goals).

Loyas got three goals as a defensive eighth grader. As a striker during her freshman and sophomore years she amassed 26 and 31 respectively. She is now positioned as a midfielder.

Erin Smith sends the ball safely over the top of the cage in one of her 16 saves on the day.

Loyas is also running cross-country again this season. Last year she qualified for states with her fifth place finish in the Section Nine Class D championships.

Scoring two goals in Seward’s quarterfinal win over Friends Academy the day before the state race left her without a full tank in the gas for that event.

Last winter Loyas played basketball too, but soccer is clearly her forte.

This past summer she made the Olympic Development Program Regional Team which means that she has been identified as one of the 30 best players in the 13 Northeast states.

She will fly to California in February to compete for a spot to represent the USA. Only about 120 girls from across the country have been identified and invited.

She has also received D1 offers from St Bonaventure and Monmouth University to play soccer in college on an athletic scholarship.

In addition,, she is waiting on offers from American University, Manhattan College, West Point, University of Arkansas, Stony Brook University, Lafayette College and Hofstra, while talking to about a dozen others including Swarthmore and Amherst.

DiMattina responded to this writer’s assertion that the level of soccer his team plays is markedly above what I normally get to cover. “It is… as long as they do what they’re supposed to do,” he answered. “You saw that here today. They all know they didn’t play well yesterday and it definitely showed. I’m glad we got back into our rhythm here and never, ever, ever take anybody lightly.”

Seward plays a different array defensively. “Most teams do play with a sweeper but  I play a flat four. The only reason why I do that is because I think the girls can do it. It all depends on the personnel. This year we have three new girls back there as senior Kari Ward is the only returnee to that backline array. We had to convert a midfielder back to defender and we brought up a player  from J.V.  It seems to be working pretty nicely. At times we do struggle because we’re still learning.”

As to the offensive firepower provided by Stam and Loyas, the coach observed, “People do try to mark them and that’s fine. Then we’ll just use the outside players. They are a very good one-two punch,” he said referencing Stam and Loyas.

With the expected pressure on those two, the rest of the team is very good at passing the ball away from them to relieve the pressure and then getting it back to them, something they didn’t do in the loss to Tuxedo.

“We kind of played a kickball game. I told the girls on the bus coming over here today if it’s not there, it’s not there. Use the outside forwards and then they’ll get it back eventually,” he noted. `

Sarah Coney authors T-V's most viable run in the first half.

Coach Feusner admitted that her team looked timid. “We told them you have to initiate the play. Instead they were sitting back and reacting to everything.

You can’t do that against a team like that. You’ve got to take control of the ball and that was not happening. We asked them to use the short passing game because the long pass just doesn’t go with their deep backs.

I kept reminding them, go back to the game plan..go back to the short passes,” she averred.

“We have to have our numbers up to do something but I think the girls are waiting for Mareena DiMilia or Rachel Adriaans to do something.  They knew they would have to play defense today but sometimes they don’t understand how quickly they have to get into the transition to move on the attack.”

Erin played a wonderful game today,” she added noting that at times when trying to clear the ball, T-V passed it right to orange feet. Then it’s one touch and go for them.”

Feusner hopes she’ll be able to get her team’s psyche ready for a more competitive outing against Seward in the sectional game on October 29.  “We’re going  to practice getting to the ball, a mantra she repeated three times and we’re going to accentuate the short passing game. I’m not going to allow those long passes,” she vowed.

Goalie saves: S – Heather Fraser 4; TV – Erin Smith 16.

Records: Seward 14-2-0 (11-1-0 OCIAA); T-V 8-8-0 (4-8-0 OCIAA).

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