By Skip Weaver
Contributing writer
ST. CLAIR TWP. – The offensive struggles for the Edgewood girls soccer team continued on Tuesday night in a 1-0 loss to rival Franklin.
“I feel like the girls played a really good, strong, aggressive game. We just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net, which is something that we’ve struggled with all season long,” Cougars’ coach Vickylynne Fall said as her team suffered its 10th shutout of the season falling to 2-12-1 overall and 0-8-0 in the Southwestern Buckeye League Southwestern Division.
Franklin (4-8-3 overall, 2-6-1 SWBL Southwestern) dealt with its own offensive struggles especially in the first half against Edgewood, but with 24:39 left in the second half freshman Harlyn Childers got the ball past Edgewood goalkeeper Charlie Fall for the 1-0 lead. The Cougars continued to apply pressure offensively the rest of the game with multiple shots on goal, but Franklin was able to make that score stand up for its second consecutive victory.
“We’re excited,” FHS coach Abby Michael said. “We’ve struggled to score this season a little bit, but we’ve picked it up the last few games that we played against some tough competition. We’re starting to come together as a team, and we’re excited for two wins in a row.
“Harlyn Childers, a freshman, has been the key to our finishing in the last few games. She’s getting more and more minutes on varsity and is doing a fantastic job,” she added.
Despite giving up the one goal, the Edgewood defense gave another stellar performance led by Fall in goal. The junior ranks third in the league with 218 saves this season.
“Charlie has done a great job back there and she is just a junior so she still has another year and that is good for us,” Coach Fall said, adding that her defense as a whole has stood out this season led by senior Kayleigh Mann, junior Kristen Weber and Charlie. She also said there’s a couple of players in the middle including Kloee Adams that have stood out.
“Ultimately, we have games where we have played really well,” Coach Fall said. “We call them light bulb moments where everybody plays good, and then we have moments when we don’t play well and we just can’t get the ball in the back of the net. It just goes that way. I mean, it’s not that we don’t practice shooting, but we just struggle with that.
“I changed the formation a couple games ago and I feel like we’re doing better with that formation, so we’ll continue to move on and just try to do the best that we can,” she continued. “We try to be positive every day with the girls and remind them that it’s a learning experience in soccer and in sports in general. It’s about learning life lessons so hopefully they’ll be able to carry the things that they learn on the field out into the world like being resilient and staying positive. Not having a winning season is hard, but I feel like it’s a skill that the girls have learned. And they’re still having fun even though we’re not winning and that’s important because having fun goes a long way when you’re losing.”
It was Senior Night for the Cougars well. Gracie Jeanmougin, Kenadie Elam, Lauren Leimbach, Alexis Pfeiffer, Chloe Hopkinds, Kloee Adams, Samantha Verhoff, Kayleigh Mann and Michaela McNaughton were all recognized for their efforts.
“It is going to be a big turnover for us next year, but I’m very proud of the way the girls played tonight and this season. I can’t ask for anything else.”
Edgewood has two regular season games remaining at Talawanda on Oct. 8 and at Ross on Oct. 13. The tournament draw is Oct. 11.
