Girls Varsity Soccer Celebrates Senior Day

As the temperature cools off and the soccer season winds down, Coaches Heedles and McCauley led the Lady Trojans out to their home field for the annual Senior Day match against rival Division. The Garden City girls celebrated the high school careers of nine of their players on Tuesday.

The seniors playing their last regular season game were captains Erin Greiner, Lily Schmitt and Kelsey Tierney, as well as Niki Berkery, Carly Knowles, Paulette Mohacsi, Taylor Pappas, Courtney Studdert, and Addie Zebrowski. Also honored was senior manager Amanda Diller. 

Prior to the game the girls were honored by their parents, coaches and teammates as there were balloons and posters for each player tied to the fences and flower bouquets presented to each of the girls. And in return the seniors presented their parents with roses and the broadest smiles imaginable.

Coach Heedles started a lineup with each of the seniors in it and they delivered as Garden City controlled much of the early match. The Lady Trojans finally broke through about midway through the first half. What eventually turned out to be the game winner was scored by Carly Knowles as she ran on to a ball sent up field by Haley O’Hanlon. Knowles broke through the Division defense and fired a shot into the corner of the goal for the 1-0 lead.

Garden City continued to push the attack and maintained control of much of the match.  Division did have a good scoring chance with about eight minutes remaining in the half but Kelsey Tierney made an acrobatic save to keep Division off the score sheet. The home team closed out the half on the attack and Lauren Meismer was able to put in the first of her two goals. Meismer put the ball into the net with a nice volley on a ball that was crossed by Kayla Murphy. The high cross was deflected by Division keeper Gina Fader as Kristen Adams went up and challenged her. Garden City led 2-0 at the half.

The second half was even more dominating for the Lady Trojan’s as the defense kept Division pinned in their own end for much of the time. Meismer scored her second goal of the game as Cailee McCarthy fed her a nice through ball to split the defense for Garden City’s third and final goal.

The game did see a couple of key girls go down with injuries that may impact coach Heedles lineup as the girls get ready for the playoffs. Early in the game senior striker Addie Zebrowski went down as she re-injured her knee. Later in the first half it was senior midfielder Erin Greiner going down with a fractured wrist. Two difficult injuries to two very important pieces of the Lady Trojans attack.             
The girls have two regular season games remaining on their schedule and then await their playoff seeding to learn who and when they will have their first match.