Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Wolverines, Cutthroats meet for friendly matches

Saturday soccer in Hailey


Wood River and The Community School boys' and girls' soccer teams resumed their ardent and ancient rivalry with two hard-fought and sportsmanlike games on the Hailey soccer fields Saturday.

Saturday afternoon at South Valley Sports Complex, the Wood River boys took advantage of two successful penalty kicks in the first half and breezed to a 5-1 victory over The Community School boys.

Spencer Flade of Wood River and Cutthroat junior Caleb Sonneland (free kick) traded goals early in the first half. Then, the Wolverines struck for three goals in the final 14 minutes of the opening half.

Travis Amick made it 2-1, then Austin McCann drilled a PK and Garrett Leo hiked the Hailey advantage to 4-1 at the half by making a PK prompted by a hard collision that bloodied McCann's nose.

Joey Stevenson's corner kick finished the scoring at 5-1 in the second half but Cutthroat goalkeeper Tyler Chandler made several big saves.

Cutthroat coach Richard Whitelaw said, "Tyler played well. We held Wood River to one goal in the second half."

That goal, remarkably, is now the difference in the 52-game, 22-season rivalry. Wolverine teams have scored 106 goals and Community School teams 105 over the long series.

Commenting on her team's defense, Wood River coach Farrell Swain said outside back Michael Dale did a good job shutting down leading Cutthroat scorer Wes Flanigan. "It was an emotional game for both teams," she said.

The girls' game was played Saturday night before a large crowd at Phil Homer field.

And it was dominated as expected by the highly-regarded Wood River squad, which out-shot The Community School 28-2 and posted a 3-0 victory in the 20th meeting of the 10-season rivalry.

Sisters Cody and Jessie Curran marked Margii Driscoll very closely in the first half, but leading Wolverine scorer Driscoll escaped briefly at 10 minutes. She intercepted a Cutthroat clearing kick, swung quickly to the left, enticed the goalkeeper out of the net and scored the only goal Wood River needed Saturday.

Calley Brown drilled one off the crossbar at 23 minutes, then Brianna Hull-Mullins made a nice lead pass to Kacie Femling who lofted her fourth goal into the top corner for a 2-0 lead at 30 minutes. Hard work by Ellen Ard produced the final goal. Ard wrestled it away from two Cutthroat defenders and stuck it home, low.

Wood River coach Greg Gvozdas was complimentary of the efforts of both juniors Femling and Ard. "Kacie and Ellen stood out tonight," he said.

So did Cutthroat sophomore goalkeeper Jean Montgomery, who made 16 of her 22 saves in the second half. "Jean did a good job," said coach Kelly Feldman, adding that starting keeper Katherine Farmer suffered a concussion in practice last week. "A keeper provides a lot of a team's confidence, and to have Jean play like that was important for us."

Feldman added about her team's defensive effort against a high-scoring unit like Wood River, "I couldn't be more pleased, especially in the second half when we held them scoreless. We never gave up and played the whole game."

Defensively, senior sweeper Caitlin Enright was very reliable and she received able help from backs McKenna Peterson and Emily Eshman, the coach said. "Caitlin has been stellar all season," Feldman added.

"We're just training for state," said Feldman, referring to three well-played games by her 3A team against 5A Twin Falls and 4A Minico and Wood River in the past two weeks.




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