Lima Senior’s Gabriella Avalos moves past Galion’s Monika Fricke during Wednesday’s match at Spartan Stadium.
LIMA – Third-year Lima Senior girls’ soccer head coach Paul Fronzaglia has always preached the importance of playing solid defense.
In Wednesday’s non-league soccer match against visiting Galion, the Spartans displayed their defensive prowess as Galion did not register a goal until nearly 16 minutes into the second half, which knotted the contest, 1-1.
However, Lima Senior was unable to respond at the offensive end in the second half as the game ended in a 1-1 tie at Spartan Stadium.
With the draw, Lima Senior is now 4-5-1 overall. The Spartans are 3-0 in the Toledo City League. Galion is 3-5-2 overall.
Lima Senior claimed a 1-0 lead, on a goal by Terrionna Bagley at the 19:37 mark of the first half. Bagley received a nice feed from teammate Maisie Strawser and fired the shot right in front of the goal.
“Since I’ve taken over the last three years, it (defense) has been easily the biggest showing of how this program has been turning,” Fronzaglia said. “Defensively, we are playing at a much higher level than we have in quite some time. The girls are putting in the work. They’re doing a better job of communicating with each other. We are playing more fundamentally sound, which has been part of the rebuilding process. They’re getting there. Every once in a while, you get something that goes the wrong way, and you’re unfortunate enough where the other team capitalizes on it. … Then it costs you, like it did tonight.”
In the first half, Lima Senior took a total of three shots on goal. However, the Spartans mustered just one shot on goal in the second half.
Galion took two shots in each half. Lima Senior goalkeeper Allison Fronzaglia made three saves on the night. Galion goalkeeper Rilynn Keinath turned away three Lima Senior shots.
Four different Lima Senior players recorded a shot Wednesday night.
Terrionna Bagley, Ava Sheeter, Ashley Huerta Tayco and Maisie Strawser all took shots for the Spartans.
Mia Felder scored the lone goal for Galion.
For the game, Galion took seven corner kicks. Lima Senior took just one corner kick in the 80 minutes of action.
“We came out, and I thought we executed our game plan pretty well, for the most part,” Fronzaglia said. “I thought we blew a few opportunities that we
had in the second half to put it away. We have to capitalize on the opportunities. A 1-0 score line is very quick to disappear if you don’t take your chances.
“We had one mental lapse on defense in the back, and that’s what cost us a win. I told the girls that we will be happy that we got a draw. But we’re not happy that we didn’t get the win, because we felt like we played well enough to get the win today.”
Lima Senior boasts a great deal of experience on this year’s roster.
“I have five freshmen and one sophomore, and everyone else is a junior or senior,” Fronzaglia said. “We have seven seniors and eleven juniors on the team. This is the most experienced team that we’ve ever had.
“So, they will have big shoes to fill next year. I have some recruiting that I will need to do among the middle schools to replace 18 girls in the next two years.”
AREA ROUNDUP
Leipsic 3, Ottoville 0
Leipsic (13-2, 4-0 PCL) won in three games, 25-12, 25-23 and 25-12 on Wednesday night.
Leaders for Leipsic were Alivia Jones (14 kills, 6 blocks), Danaysia Danzy (13 kills, 12 digs, 2 aces), Karmyn Brough (32 assists, 59-59 setting, 3 aces), Samantha Hazelton (15 digs, 2 aces), Jaelynn Siefer (16-16 serving, 2 aces), Jadyn Cupp (3 blocks, 2 kills, 1 ace) and Ava Henry (2 kills, 2 blocks).
Pandora-Gilboa 3, Elmwood 1
P-G won 25-22, 25-14, 22-25 and 25-14 on Wednesday night.
Leaders for Pandora-Gilboa were Corrin Luginbill (29 kills), Devin Draper (8 kills), Nevaeha Alvarado (6 kills), Ava Huffman (36 digs), Luci Hovest (19 digs) and Peyton Diller (50 assists, 14 digs, 2 aces).
