Memorable Moments #3 & #2 (Soccer Sectional Edition)

#3. October 15: Penalty kicks go Bruins’ way … eventually
The date given above was in October, but the prelude would be set in September. In front of an Alumni Night crowd that gave the girls their largest attendance of the regular season, Emma Caskey scored in the 63rd minute to tie Bethany and Westview at 1, but Kirstin Oesch put the ball past Bethany goalkeeper Kelly Snyder on the final penalty kick and Westview took the shootout 3-2.
Skip forward 19 days, and the setting was the same. Playing on their home field in front of a smaller fan contingent paying admission to the IHSAA, the Bruins took on another set of Warriors, this time the set from Wawasee. Scheduled to start at 7:00, the game would be delayed over half an hour as Warsaw and Westview went to penalty kicks in the other semifinal.
The Bethany-Wawasee game was played in quite a pleasant atmosphere — from my vantage point in the press box. On the field, however, was another story. The Goshen airport, having picked up snow ten hours before, registered a temperature of 39 degrees at 7:40, with a steady drizzle that would continue throughout the game and a stiff breeze from the northeast. Braving the elements and the defense, Sharisse Yoder scored in the 12th minute to give Bethany a 1-0 lead; Mallory Rondeau answered back with an assist from Haley Cunningham three minutes before halftime to tie the game at 1. Emma Gerig and Marissa Weldy, determined not to make this their final home game, teamed up on the go-ahead goal in the 43rd minute, an advantage that Cassandra Degood erased just after the period’s halfway point. Neither team scored in the remaining 19 minutes or in either overtime, and the sectional finalist would be decided in a penalty kick shootout after extra time finished in a 2-2 draw.
The year before, NorthWood’s Kelcy Heckaman who scored with five minutes to go; in 2008, the same Wawasee Warriors stepped to the same penalty mark and eliminated Bethany in a hard-fought game at the place now known as Bodiker Field. Would it happen again? Not if another senior had anything to say about it.
That senior was not Karli Graybill; although she likely would have agreed, she mishit the first attempt of the shootout and sent it high of the goal. Rondeau scored to give Wawasee a 1-0 lead in the shootout, an advantage that was erased when Emma Caskey converted her attempt for BCHS and Sarah Rozow was unable to follow suit. Sharisse Yoder and Kayla Courtney both put their schools on the board, but Weldy’s shot met the gloves of Warrior goalie Amy Walker and was deflected wide. Katie Allen scored, and suddenly the Bruins were up against the wall on their own home field.
Malaina Weldy converted her opportunity to tie the shootout at 3, but Wawasee had one attempt remaining. The match, two hours old and involving over two dozen people, and the careers of so many seniors came down to two seniors and one shot. At the penalty mark, placing the ball down under the eye of referee Walt MacRae, stood Bethaney Acton of Wawasee. On the goal line was Kelly Snyder of Bethany, who made 10 saves her sophomore year and 7 her junior in elimination games where the Bruins were outshot but almost held on, being undone by a single late shot going in.
This time, it didn’t go in. Acton missed, and elimination would not be possible for at least a few minutes.
If there is anything in soccer more gut-wrenching than a shootout, it is a sudden-death shootout, and that was the stage to which this game was headed. But sudden-death was a bit of a misnomer, as neither team’s season would die. Their opportunities, however, did. The sixth round featured a pair of misses. Bethany’s sixth shooter was freshman Laken Richer. Aiming for the back of the net, she hit Walker instead, only to see Haley Cunningham’s game-winning attempt saved. Elyse Hooley rattled the woodwork with a shot that hit the crossbar and popped straight up, only to be collected by Walker. But Maggie Reichel’s shot was saved, as was each team’s ninth attempt. Finally Anna Nafziger broke through, her shot sailing into the net past a diving Walker.
Again the game came down to two girls and one shot, with Snyder again in goal and Lexi Blunk playing the part of Acton. The ball went to Blunk’s right. Snyder dove to her left, and the two met.
That save ended the game with Bethany prevailing 3-2, 4-3 in penalty kicks. Wawasee’s season ended there; Bethany advanced to meet Warsaw two nights later for the sectional championship. You’ll read about that game later in this series, but at the time, the sectional semifinal was the most memorable moment in the 2009 season.
#2. October 17: Defense wins championship
The title for this game is a cliché as old as defense itself, or it would be were an “s” not missing from the end. But on the third Saturday in October, it worked for Bethany.
Defense that night had to be played by the teams, without assistance from rain or near-freezing temperatures as there was two days before. The air was a pleasant 48 degrees, the sky free of rain for over 40 hours before.
Bethany jumped out to an early lead, scoring in the 12th minute on a Sharisse Yoder corner kick featured earlier in the Memorable Moments series. That was most of the work for Warsaw netminder Diana Monroy, as Bethany managed no other shots on goal for 68 minutes thereafter. Warsaw got off seven, although both teams saw other opportunities end in shots that were not on goal. When the first six of those attempts came in, Bethany’s Kelly Snyder was ready, seizing the same opportunities and balls that she had in the shootout with Wawasee.
Warsaw had one more opportunity in the final half-minute. One more shot was fired, and after a scrum in the penalty area, the ball landed in front of the senior goalkeeper playing her final game at home. She fell on the ball as the Nevco scoreboard showed 0:06, covering it and finally getting up as the game-ending horn was triggered and the scoreboard reading 1-0 in Bethany’s favor.
For the first time since 2005, Bethany’s girls soccer team won the sectional championship. It was their first trophy for the Bruins under head coach Dennis Yoder, but the school won four in nine years under the direction of Bryan Kehr before he resigned to become athletic director. And although their season ended in the regional with a 5-0 loss to powerhouse Penn, the Bruins walked out of Bodiker Field that night as none of the players had before: as sectional champions.
Coming up tomorrow: This year, the Bruins set numerous school records. The moment remaining wasn’t one of them, but it was still number one.