Lady Tigers And Lady Mountaineers Agree To A Tie

by Erin Hogan
The New Lebanon and Berlin girls varsity soccer teams battled for third place in Saturday’s New Lebanon Soccer Tournament on rainy, muddy fields. It was an even match, going back and forth for most of the first half. Wide shots and saves were the name of the game for Berlin and New Lebanon.
Deanna Nash started the scoring for Berlin on a direct kick outside the penalty box. The first half was starting to wind down, and it seemed Berlin would be left in the lead, but Geneva Furlano changed that. She got the ball and dribbled in from midfield and scored on Berlin with five minutes left to go in the half. The half ended 1-1.
After the break both teams went back out for 40 rainy more minutes to see who would get the third place trophy. Once again there was no clear indication who would win the game. The ball would be shot on one goal, be saved or go wide and then shot on the opposite goal. The Lady Tigers had excellent passing that led to them getting into Berlin’s defensive area a lot, but Berlin’s defense was hard to get through with Jenelle Gazalone and Rachel Gordon clogging up the area in front of the goal. New Lebanon started to dominate the game, taking shot after shot on Berlin. Kaitlin Wilder, Hannah Springer and Geneva Furlano were all taking awesome shots but just couldn’t get the ball into the net. When Berlin got a chance to shoot off a corner taken by Emily Dooley, the New Lebanon defense rejected the shot.
Both teams were working hard trying to score and it wasn’t until there were 10 minutes left that New Lebanon took the lead on an outside shot by Hannah Springer. Now Berlin started to get frantic trying to get the ball into the New Lebanon net, but New Lebanon had the ball in Berlin’s end for quite a while, and it seemed that New Lebanon was going to walk away with a clean win. Berlin would push the ball up into New Lebanon’s defense with Deanna Nash taking the shot, but nothing seemed to be working. There were two minutes left and still nothing from Berlin. New Lebanon charged back down the field to try to secure their win with one last shot. They didn’t score, and Berlin got the ball and headed the other way for their last try to score.
Then it happened. With 50 seconds left in the second half, Deanna Nash got the ball to Maria Gordon, and Gordon crossed the ball in front of the New Lebanon goal. The goalie stepped out, missed the ball, and Emily Dooley tapped it in to keep the Mountaineers in the game.
Regulation time expired with the score 2-2, sending the teams into overtime. Ten more minutes were put on the board, and the girls took their places. Berlin seemed to have a new energy at the start and dominated with Adriana Rizzo and  Emily Dooley taking shots off of feeds from Deanna Nash. New Lebanon ended the overtime with a corner kick that was close, but they were unable to finish.
The score was still 2-2 so there was another 10 minute overtime. This time New Lebanon would dominate. Anything coming into the Lady Tiger defense was stopped by Meredith Lukas and Juanita Eaton and sent up to the Tigers’ offense. This half was very physical and chaotic and the crowd could see that both teams wanted the win. Furlano and Sara Magin were taking shots that were stopped by the Berlin defense. After a hard fight the score still stayed 2-2 forcing the teams to go to a shootout to see who would get third place.
For shootouts, teams take turns taking penalty kicks until one team scores enough to win. Geneva Furlano was in goal for New Lebanon, and Ashley Vincent stayed in goal for Berlin. A hush went over the crowd as Ashley Vincent took the goal. First for New Lebanon was Geneva. She made her shot. The first kicker for Berlin was Adriana Rizzo. Her shot went over. Second for New Lebanon was Maggie Springer who scored, putting NL up 2-0 in penalties.  Next up for Berlin was Erin Berschwinger, she scored making it 2-1. Juanita Eaton took the next shot for New Lebanon and missed over the goal. Rachel Gordon was next for Berlin. Her shot was saved by Furlano. The last shot of the game was Rachel Farrell who scored making it 3-1. At this point the referees called the game over with New Lebanon the winners of this hard struggle and the 3rd place winners of the Tournament. Geneva Furlano received a trophy for the “Coaches Choice” player of the game. Both teams had a great game and did an awesome job.
A Boo-Boo And An Act Of Sportsmanship
However, after a review of this reporter’s notes, it was determined that Berlin still had a chance to win the shootout if the next two shooters from Berlin scored and the two Tiger shooters missed. The referees had prematurely called the game.  . The Berlin coach brought this to the attention of the New Lebanon coach, and it was decided that officially the game would be called a tie.