2012 SEASON: MY SITE NEWS: LADY COMETS HUMBLE WEST SCRANTON: PLAYOFFS LIE AHEAD

The leaves on the trees were resplendent, the smiles on the players' faces were bright and ingratiating, the blue and white sky was beautiful--the game was ugly.  It could have been much uglier, but in an act of great humanity and sportsmanship, Coach Hunter applied the brakes early on and then began a steady process of down shifting his team's gears, a process that began near the end of the first half and which continued through the second stanza of the Lady Comets' 5-0 win.  All in all. the actvities of this week's "princess day" may have been more entertaining than yesterday's game.

In a fair and compassionate world, games such as this would not be played. However, in the perhaps less-than-fair environment of Lackwanna County soccer, such games are played on a regular basis. The schedule-makers need to do some serious thinking and some careful revising.  There is no element of justice or prudence in setting up mismatches of such gigantic proportion. West Scranton is a fine high school.  Its girls' soccer team is populated by some very nice young women, but the Lady Invaders need to be given a less ambitous schedule so that they can develop in the manner they should. Many of the Invaders are spunky and determined, and maintain a remarkably sweet disposition, given all they have gone through this season and in years past. But when we witness a team post a 37-1 shot differential--in a game where most of the Abington starters spent the second 40 minutes riding the pine--we can see that playing such games does neither team any favors.

The extreme character of today's mismatch was, in part, indicated in the fact that, for the first time all season, ALL of the Lady Comets' goals were unassisted. Why? Because Abington players would simply dribble around and through the opposing defense and free themselves for shots.

Riding her current offensive streak, Paige Eisenlohr opened the Abington scoring when she nailed a beautful shot from inside the box at the 13:56 mark. Shortly, thereafter--at  26:00 and 29:59 respectively--Isabelle Clauss would score her two goals of the game, each time following dribble penetration into the penalty area.  The Lady Comets carried the 3-0 lead into the half. 

In the second half, goalkeeper Melanie Coles would get a chance to play in the field, and she responded with two goals. The first, came from a penalty kick conversion--her second of the season--the second, occured at the 55:54 mark, when she collected a ball in the defensive third, dribbled to improve position, and then drove an elevated ball past the keeper. The Lady Comets used four goalkeepers in this game (only one of which had played in the position this season). But, honestly, the game was so one-sided that the team could have played without a keeper and suffered nothing for it.

Now, thankfully, we move on to the playoffs, where the weather is likely to be colder but the games are likely to be more competitive. The Lady Comets, who will be one of the favorites to take the District 2 crown again, will likely open up with a semi-final contest on Tuesday October 30th, possibly at Memorial Stadium. Stay tuned! We will keep you updated.