By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
NEWARK VALLEY — Newark Valley rallied twice in the second half, then scored the game-winning goal in the final minute to advance to the quarterfinals of the Section IV Class C girls soccer playoffs here Tuesday.
Adrianna Finta kept NV in the hunt with a hat trick and, with time being a factor, the Short sisters stood tall, both figuring in on the final goal in a 4-3 victory over Delhi.
Kam Short’s indirect kick to the right side of the goal was deflected by Bulldog keeper Jillian Fishner, ricocheting to Liv Short who tapped the ball into the net from in front of the goal with 43 seconds remaining on the clock. Kam Short was credited with the assist.
Just before the kick, the referee whistled for Kam Short to move the ball closer to the goal.
“I said we had to have two; it was an indirect, so because it was an indirect I sent two players over,” said coach Chuck Schneider. "Their player tried to run over to cover the person we were going to pass to, so he stopped her and said you need to be 10 (yards), and so by giving us that 10, that gave us the space to work with and that resulted in a better shot. The shot was nice by Kam, deflected off their keeper, Liv stayed with it and put it away.”
The late score is nothing new for NV this season.
“Once again, last minute of the game,” said Schneider. “It seems like there’s been three or four of those games this year, just about a minute left in the game where we put a goal in to win it, so it was nice.
The 8th-seeded Cardinals fell behind, 2-0, early in the second half, but Finta scored in the 16th and 21st minutes to even things up. Her first tally of the evening came 26 seconds after Delhi’s Leah Dennis scored the second of her three goals.
Finta found the back of the net a second time to make it a 2-2 game, but the deadlock was short-lived as Dennis responded with a hat trick goal 28 seconds later.
Liv Short assisted on Finta's first tally and Aubrey Kwiatkowski had the helper on the second.
The Bulldog’s 3-2 edge would hold up for more than six minutes before Finta registered her hat trick. Finta’s initial shot on goal was blocked by Fishner, who came out of the goal to make the play. Finta would reel in the ball and shoot into an open goal to tie things up with 13:46 to go.
“She was just hustling it. She was killing it,” said Schneider of Finta. “She’s been one of our major scorers this year and the first one, she dribbled through a couple players and placed it well. The second one was just hustle and those hustle plays made a huge difference. And then on that one play, left foot, I told her to use her left foot a couple times during the game and she did at that moment and scored on it, so that was nice to see that.”
The Cardinals stepped up the pressure in the latter minutes of action, but the Cardinals were unable to convert corner kicks in the 30th and 31st minutes. Fishner made another save in the 35th minute and NV and NV missed another shot wide right as the clock dipped below two minutes.
Both defenses did a solid job keeping the opposition at bay for much of the first half, even though No. 9 see Delhi held a slight advantage in early possession.
NV may have come out a little flat, but that might have been due to a long layoff.
“We had almost two weeks off since our last game, “ Schneider said. “Part of that was on purpose to let this team rest up because we’ve been playing with injuries all season.
“We had a rough stretch with seven games in 13 days so I decided not to take any risks of injuries or something goofy happening. With two weeks off it took us a half, but as I told them at halftime, no worries, because we’ve been in this position all year where we’re playing from down and we came back and from behind again.”
The Bulldogs weren’t able to connect on a pass deep inside the 18 in the 11th minute and Finta, who played defense in the first half, disrupted a prime Delhi opportunity for a breakaway in the 32nd minute, forcing Luciane Smith to shoot around her, allowing NV goalkeeper Ava Fiedler to come up with an easy save.
The visitors would finally remove a goose egg from the scoreboard as Dennis scored with 2:22 showing on the first-half clock.
Newark Valley had just 12 players in its lineup.
Both teams attempted 13 shots on goal with NV holding an 8-3 advantage in corner kicks.
Fiedler and Fishner made eight saves apiece.
The Cardinals will visit top-seeded Elmira Notre Dame Friday. Game-time is 3:30 p.m.
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PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
