Hanover girls’ head soccer coach Whitney Harpold was optimistic heading into the Capital District championship against Atlee. Even though the Raiders entered the contest without a loss, one of Atlee’s two ties came at home against the Hawks, and even then the Raiders’ only score came in the final seconds of play.

  “That’s how I started the game was, ‘just remember the first time we played against them’,” Harpold said she told her Hawks. “ That’s what the motivation was.”

  But whatever advantage Harpold had in emotion was hedged by her growing list of injuries, not only coming into the game but as play got underway. “Most of my starters are injured and I pulled up a lot of JV,” she said. “We have a lot of players who haven’t played in the team all season and who haven’t played on the varsity level.”

  By the time the clock expired, the drain showed on the Hawks as Atlee rolled to a 9-0 win.

  Despite the lopsided score, it could have been worse. Atlee had nearly a half-dozen open attacks called back on off-sides infractions including the first goal of the game in the 14th minute of play. But utilizing a trap to create the offsides is something that the Hawks excel at. “We normally have Tia Dillich and she’s notorious for the off-sides trap,” Harpold said.

  Atlee head coach Bruce Lovelace agreed. “They trap and that’s part of it,” he said. “They push up and trap. The reason we were offside is what they did defensively to us.”

  Hanover keeper Nicole Shelton turned in a spectacular performance picking up 23 saves on the game but Shelton was simply over-whelmed by the frequency of the Raiders’ attacks. As little as 10 percent of the game’s minutes were spent on Atlee’s end of the field. “She always has a good game on goal,” Harpold said. “Shelton has yet to have any bad games. That’s all I can ask for her. She’s amazing to see out there.”

  Throughout the season, Atlee has shown a frustrating trend in their inability to generate offense in the first half. Such was not the case against Hanover.

  “We’ve always had problems in the first half for some reason,” Lovelace said. “In this game we came out, and again it took us a little while before we actually setting in and scored.”

  Atlee finally broke through the Shelton defense in the 24th minute when freshman Ashley Riefner took an assist from classmate Sam Armentrout and drilled a shot past the outstretched arms of Shelton and into the goal.

  With the freshmen duo, Lovelace likes what he sees with the future of the Atlee program. “She’s going to be player,” he said of Riefner. “Sam’s been solid. Both of them are going to be excellent players; a great combination for the future.”

  Five minutes later, Atlee added to their lead when Armentrout booted a shot into the net as she was falling for a 2-0 Raider lead.

  It appeared that the margin would grow to three when another shot reached the net in the final minute of the half. However, even though the half-ending whistle appeared to blow well after the ball was kicked, the goal was negated by the officials.

  Yet, it did not take long for Atlee to add to its lead in the second half. Five minutes into the period, Player of the Year Jordan Roseboro sent a header off a corner kick to make it 3-0.

  Then over the final 12 minutes of play Atlee took advantage of the quickly tiring Hanover team. Lindsey Booth got things going on an assist to Riefner for her second goal of the game and a 4-0 lead.

  Thirty seconds later it was Booth on a solo attack out front to make it 5-0.
  In the seventy-second minute of play, Armentrout’s shot was smartly defending by Shelton but the deflection when directly to Atlee’s Anna Kirby for an open score and a 6-0 lead.

  Armentrout got her second goal two minutes later on a fast break.

  Roseboro added her second goal in the final minute and Mia Warlick scored in the closing seconds to create the final margin.

  While the Raiders appeared to be hitting on all cylinders, Lovelace said there’s still work to do heading into regionals. “We still need to do a little bit better, but obviously I was pleased with the progress.”

  As far as Hanover, though short-handed, Harpold is excited about making it to regionals. “Hanover’s only gotten to regionals a few times so we’re excited as a team,” she said.

Hanover…........................................0 0 — 0
Atlee ............................................... 2 7 — 9
Saves: Shelton (H) 23; Hoy (A) 2, Diedrick (A) 1 Records: Hanover 10-4-1; Atlee 15-0-2