SCRANTON — Ninth-seeded Wyoming Valley West scored three first-half goals and rolled to a 5-1 win over eighth-seeded Abington Heights in a District 2 Class 3A girls soccer play-in game Wednesday afternoon at the University of Scranton’s Fitzpatrick Field.
Valley West’s Kennadi Josefowicz, who scored a hat trick, sent a wide-angle shot off Abington Heights goalkeeper Abbey Steenback and into the goal to give the Spartans a 1-0 lead in the sixth minute.
Josefowicz recognized the importance of getting off to a good start.
“When you get the lead you can play more defensive and it’s harder for them to score,” she said. “And, when we score it keeps going.”
Annabelle Wojciechowski scored off a pass from Mary Zavada to put Valley West ahead 2-0 in the 16th minute.
The Spartans took a three-goal lead, in the 26th minute when Josefowicz scored off an assist from Zavada.
Zavada feels the Spartans are peaking at the right part of the season as they prepare to play against top-seeded Crestwood (15-1-2) in a quarterfinal game at 4 p.m. Friday.
“It’s given us good confidence and it’s really good timing,” Zavada said. “Everybody though we were going to be knocked out, so coming in and winning this game gives us good hopes.”
Abington Heights (9-9-0) got on the board when Riley Mulherin scored off a pass from Jenna Patel in the 30th minute. Mulherin sent another shot just wide, seconds later, and Morghan Stiles had two quality scoring chances in the following minutes, but the Comets were unable to convert.
Comets head coach Errol Mannick believes immaturity was the downfall of the team.
“We probably possessed the ball about 70 percent of time,” he said. “The different was pretty much what we’ve seen all year long; their attack was really fast and accurate and ours was very slow and inaccurate. That’s been our Achilles’ heel. We’re young and inexperienced, and that’s the different in any big game.”
Josefowicz capped her three-goal game with a dazzling individual effort in the 48th minute. She headed the ball down, beat a defender and placed the ball in the goal.
Although the junior forward has scored 19 goals in the last five games, Valley West head coach Deb Stevens praised her unselfishness.
“She’s a very team-oriented player,” Stevens said. “There are many opportunities for her to score and she’ll pass it to another player.”
Gwen Langley scored off an assist from Josefowicz in the 73rd minute for the Spartans’ final goal of the game.
Despite the loss, Mannick believes a bright future is ahead for Abington Heights.
“I think we overachieved slightly, but we still had a lot of potential that we never struck,” he said. “There were several people who got significantly better. I don’t think we ever really meshed as a team, but there were a lot of individual highlights.
“Besides Leia, the entire team is back for one to three years. I would have liked to get one more (win), but hopefully we can use it as a motivator.”
