Wasilla’s Alia Donnely had 15 reasons to get her soccer team the victory over Skyview Thursday evening.
The Wasilla freshman celebrated her 15th birthday Thursday by scoring a hat trick that boosted the Warriors to a 14-0 win at Skyview High School. The win improves Wasilla’s season record to 4-1 overall (3-0 Northern Lights Conference). It was the first game of the year for Skyview.
“She’s really quick up front and gets good position with the ball,” said Wasilla coach Patrick O’Neill. “She really knows how to open up and get shots from the corner, and she got some right off the bat.”
Donnely got the scoring started early with a shot past Skyview goalie Mandee Lawson in the sixth minute by outracing the Skyview defense and waiting to shoot until Lawson was too far out from goal.
Donnely got a second goal in the ninth minute in a very similar manner, and before too long the rout was on.
“We’re young, inexperienced, this is our first time out,” said Skyview coach David Carpenter. “I think Brooklyn Kean played a solid match in the middle. She’s very small but she brought it up in a physical aspect. Ciarra (Mahan) and Taylor (Wilson), their leadership was outstanding, we organized ourselves better in the second half, so we’re going to get better along the way.”
Before 22 minutes were up, Lawson had given up four goals on eight shots, so Carpenter pulled her in favor of Mahan in the net. From there, Mahan faced 30 shots and gave up 10 goals. Overall, Wasilla enjoyed a 38-5 shots-on-goal advantage.
After Donnely’s two early goals, junior Alexa Starr scored twice to increase her season tally to 10. Starr’s scores Thursday came in the 11th and 19th minutes on booming shots that soared past the fingertips of Lawson.
“(Starr)’s really our leader in the middle,” O’Neill said. “She’s a motor that keeps us running.”
The Warriors got goals from Lydia Phillips in the 25th minute, Teyonnah Williams in the 27th, Courtney May in the 30th and Addie Mesick in the 32nd, leading to an 8-0 lead at halftime.
“There was no reason to point out their flaws, it was about trying to restructure their defense,” Carpenter said about the halftime break. “We had kids playing in places they’ve never played.”
Wasilla debuted a new turf field this season, and O’Neill said the practice time on that has paid dividends.
“The biggest adjustment was playing on a smaller, shorter field,” O’Neill said. “I think having three games under our belt gave us an advantage. We’ve been out practicing since the middle of March.”
In the second half, Wasilla added to its lead with goals from Keanna Hawk in the 49th minute, Ally Hull on a corner kick in the 57th, Mesick in the 65th, Donnely in the 70th (completing her hat trick), and Alexis Abbott in the 78th.
Wasilla will face Homer today, while Skyview will board the ferry to Kodiak for the weekend, with games on Saturday.
Wasilla boys 5, Skyview 0
The Skyview boys team got its 2014 campaign going Thursday evening with a shutout loss at the hands of Wasilla.
The Warriors improved their season record to 4-3 overall (3-1 conference).
“To Skyview’s credit, they came out with a scrappy side,” said Wasilla coach Blake Livingston. “It took us awhile to sort things out.”
The first 15 minutes played out evenly between the two squads, but the Warriors struck first with a goal from Oleg Lozko at the 16th minute. Lozko took advantage of a mistake from Skyview goalie Chad Harley and lofted the ball into the net. Lozko ended the day with two goals.
Just three minutes later, RJ Kinmon found some space near the right corner of the goalie box and directed a strike past Harley to give Wasilla a 2-0 lead.
“We’re still trying to find our identity,” Livingston said. “We really focused on keeping our shape and using our width and trying to knock the ball around.”
If the Panthers had any hopes of making up ground, they were extinguished in the 23rd minute, when Skyview received a penalty for a collision in the goalie box that gave Wasilla a penalty kick opportunity. The Warriors goaltender, Kevin O’Loughlin, took the kick and scored on Harley to extend the lead to 3-0.
“I couldn’t tell from this far away, I’m going to trust the refs on that one,” said first-year Skyview coach Jake Eveland. “But it’s soccer. It’s one of those things, we’ll get PK’s some games, and we’ll get them against us in others.”
Harley played the first half in goal for Skyview, facing eight shots and giving up two goals, but Eveland put in Dustin Buerkel for the second half against increasing pressure. Buerkel gave up one goal — and one PK goal — on 14 shots.
The Warriors got another opportunity at a PK goal in the second half. Lozko and Austin Craig collided in the goalie box in the 51st minute, which set Lozko up for a strike against Buerkel in net, and he converted successfully with a shot to the lower left corner.
Wasilla added to its lead with a goal in the 78th minute from Artem Savchuk.
“I’m pleased with what I saw after being out here only a week,” Eveland said. “There’s some things to work on, but I thought we were in it the whole time.”
Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion Skyview’s 13 tries to get around Wasilla’s 6 during their game Thursday April 24, 2014 at Skyview High School in Soldotna, Alaska.
