Practically neighbors in country terms, the soccer fields of St. Catherine’s and Collegiate reside a short distance from each other. But when it comes to the tradition of the girls soccer programs themselves, the distance has always been much wider.

  However, this season the playing field has been leveled and never was that more apparent than last Thursday when the Saints left Collegiate’s Robins’ Campus field with a hard fought 2-1 win over the Cougars.

  “Always in the past it’s kind of been a given that Collegiate’s going to win a game like this,” said St. Catherine head coach Laura Marshalek. “But now there’s more parity in our league and it’s fun. It makes it nice. It makes it a more competitive environment for soccer in general.”

  St. Catherine’s came in the contest off to the best start in program history, ranked No. 9 in the Times-Dispatch Poll and sporting a 10-0-1 record while Collegiate sat at 6-5-1. But both teams knew that the rivalry match-up was one where season records were of little consequence.

  “Yeah, that’s the fun part of it,” said Cougar head coach Bill Rider. “They’ve really developed their program. It’s been fun to see the quality in the LIS get to this point, to where these are really meaningful games.”

  And though Rider’s team came out on the short end against the Saints, he would rather see Collegiate play a quality opponent and lose than take a lop-sided win as an over-matched favorite.

  “I hate to be on the losing side of it but I’ll trade the excellent competition for the chance to lose any time of the week,” he said.

  With records thrown out the window, both squads put everything on the line in the tightly contested game. “I think both teams played a very solid, hard game,” Marhsalek said. “All the girls gave everything they have and they left it all on the field.”

  The Collegiate defense made a huge play in the opening minutes of the game to avoid an early deficit.

  Looking to corral a Saints’ shot on goal, Collegiate junior mid Ellen Davenport and junior keeper Gianna Tondini dove for the ball in front of the net. Diving in opposite directions, the ball squirted out from between the pair leaving a point-blank open shot for St. Catherine freshman Erin Menges.

  Menges raced in for the kill but lying on her side in the dirt, Tondini raised her right leg and deflected the shot to nullify the attack.

  “Great defensive effort on our part to get back there and do what it takes to make sure that we didn’t get in the hole real early,” Rider said.

  However, as impressive as Tondini’s defensive play appeared, it did little to match St. Catherine’s first score of the game.
  In the 19th minute of play, Saints’ senior Anne Peyton Lietch found herself battling for control of the ball with her back to the goal a good 30 meters away. Having nowhere else to go, Lietch booted the ball in a high reverse loft back over her head. The wind caught the ball and Tondini could do nothing but watch as the ball came down from on high right in front of the cross bar and into the back of the net.

  “They were fortunate at that one,” Rider said. “If you send the ball towards the goal things might happen and in that case they did. That demonstrated that they had a bit of fortune shining on them today.”

  “It’s been a called a cruel game for obvious reasons,” he added.

  Marshalek laughed it off as a designed play. “No it was a great shot is what it was,” she smiled. “She took an opportunity and capitalized on it. She was in a tough spot. It was coming high and pretty unpredictable in the air, so the keeper was in a pretty tough position.”

  Six minutes later it looked as if the Saints were going to add to their lead but a bullet shot from Morgan Powell hit squarely on the cross bar and caromed away.

  The Cougars managed to tie the game at one in the final two minutes of the half, when senior Julie Sroba struck from center goal, slipping a shot past Saints’ keeper Kelsey Hillner.

  Both teams had an opportunities to take the lead in the second half but the defenses proved unrelenting.

  Then in the 76th minute St. Catherine’s found an opening. With both teams battling a Collegiate attack, St. Catherine senior Anna Sauer found the ball with nothing but grass and Tondini between her and the net on the opposite end of the field. Sauer raced ahead of Annie Stettinius and Carter while Tondini come forward for the block giving her what turned out to be the winning shot from 25 meters out.

  Rider had no complaints about his team’s effort on defense. “A goal was coming for us and sometimes when you’re pushing and pushing you leave yourself open for a counter attack and they got one and finished it well,” he said.

  “All you can do is try and create those opportunities and hope they come to fruition,” Rider said. “They hit the cross bar, missed the PK. They certainly had their chances in the first half and we had ours in the second and they finished theirs. That’s what it takes to walk away the winner.”

  Undefeated and the regular season winding to a close, Marshalek said there’s little chance of her Saints resting on their laurels. “The girls set goals for themselves early in the season and they’ve just gone after those goals and you just want to keep getting better and attain those goals,” she said.
 
St. Catherine’s…................... 1 1 — 2
Collegiate….......................... 1 0 — 1
SC: Lietch, Sauer
C: Ju. Srona
Saves:McGehee (SC) 2, Hillner (SC) 5; Tondini (C) 6
Records: St. Catherine’s 11-0-1, 5-0 LIS; Collegiate 6-6-1, 3-2