St. Marys advances after win in OT

LEXINGTON - With less than 10 minutes remaining in their season and trailing Akron St. Vincent-St. Marys by a goal, the St. Marys girls soccer team needed a burst to force overtime.

Samantha Davenport provided a clutch goal for the Roughriders, getting free and tying the Division II regional semifinal with 6:51 to play in regulation.

Then with just over three minutes gone in the first overtime, Macy Davis-Ferrall scored off a corner kick to give the Roughriders a 2-1 win at Lexington High School.

St. Marys (16-4-1) advances to its first-ever regional championship match on Saturday at Graham Soccer Stadium in Findlay in a noon matchup with Millbury Lake (19-1-1), which defeated Ontario 2-1 at Findlay in the other regional semifinal on Wednesday night. The Irish, ranked sixth in the final state coaches poll, ends the year at 15-3-3.

The defensive struggle saw SVSM dominate the first half of play, keeping the ball on its end for the bulk of the first 40 minutes and keeping close tabs on St. Marys' top scoring threats, Davenport and Kaysha Dietz.

The Irish broke open the scoring with 15 minutes left in the first half. A corner kick caused a mad scramble in front of the net. Several Irish players were close to the ball when one kicked it past Paige Dicus for the first goal of the night.

St. Vincent-St. Marys outshot St. Marys 7-3 in the first half and were in control.

"When they came off at halftime, I asked 'Are you afraid of them?' They still felt they were in the game and we were still in the game," said St. Marys coach Paul Dingledine.

Finally, St. Marys caught a break with the clock winding toward seven minutes to play. On the throw in, Dietz dinked the ball to Davenport, who got the ball to the corner and turned to the goal, booting the ball past SVSM keeper Adrienne Henterly with 6:51 to play to square the match. It was the only shot on goal for the Roughriders in the second half.

"All I did was go for corners," said Davenport. "I worked all year to hit my corners. It's paid off for me a lot. Since their goalie was shorter, we talked about hitting high corners. I got the open shot, all I was thinking was top right corner."

From there, the momentum swung heavily to the St. Marys side. SVSM did all it could to keep St. Marys from getting the go-ahead goal before the overtime.

St. Marys won the toss and took possession in the first 15-minute sudden victory overtime. Immediately, the Roughriders worked the ball downfield and challenged the Irish. With nearly three minutes gone in the extra session, Carrie Schlater, who had been taking more corner kicks through the postseason, booted a perfect shot into the box. Davis-Ferrall got squared up and knocked it in with 11:56 remaining to send the Roughriders to the Elite Eight.

"Carrie had an amazing corner kick," said Davis-Ferrall. "It was perfect. It came up to my shoulder and I just drove into it."

"The past couple games we went with Carrie on corner kicks. Katie (Burke) and Kaysha have done a fine job, but Carrie has had some great corners lately," said Dingledine.

Now the Roughriders have taken their program to the farthest point in school history. Dingledine hopes some more miles can be put on the bus.

"The girls just don't want it to end," said Dingledine. "We talked about it in practice. They want to keep going. I told them coming into the game there's 16 teams at this level and only one of them isn't going to lose to end the season. The rest are going to lose. I said there's no reason it can't be us (to win)."