Parkersburg South girls, PHS boys prepared for regional final
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PARKERSBURG -- Both Parkersburg South girls and Parkersburg boys soccer team will be looking to avenge 5-0 losses in the regular season in the Class AAA Region IV championship games today at Hurricane High School. The Big Reds will be facing the Cabell Midland Knights at 5 p.m. and the Patriots play the defending state champion Hurricane Redskins roughly 30 minutes after.
A poor start to the season due to newcomers getting used to the speed and physical aspect of varsity play the Patriots have been looking like the team head coach Ron Bucholtz was waiting for from the start.
Starting with a 7-0 thrashing of Grafton in early October, the Patriots won five of their last six outings for the right to play in their fourth-straight regional final.
The quality of opponent hasn't been the bottom of the barrel either, as the six teams have a combined record of 84-23-28.
During that stretch, the Patriots have scored 14 goals and allowed just two past junior goalkeeper Kendal Mader. Only a goal apiece in the 2-1 win versus Cabell Midland and 1-0 lost to Charleston Catholic, a team among the favorites in the Class AA/A.
"I expected there was gonna be some growing pains and, you know, these girls have come a long way. They have matured and grown into the season and their roles. But now these girls have 20 games under their belt, it's showing and it's made a big difference," Bucholtz said.
"Hopefully we get a better result this year than we've had the last few years, especially for our seniors. I'd hate for them to go 0-4 in regional finals, but it is what it is and we are one of the last eight teams standing and that speaks highly for where these girls are at considering where we were at the beginning of the season."
Hurricane and South already played in the regular season. The Redskins blowing past the South at the Erickson All-Sports Facility late September.
Bailey Fisher scoring a hat trick and Lauren Dye having a brace, Dani Ray also had three assists.
Hurricane's offense remains ferocious heading into the contest. They scored 114 goals and the defense allowed just six all season. Fisher has the state leading 64 goals and Ray is second on the Redskins with has 13 goals and a team-leading 20 assists. Goalkeeper Olivia Bird has 18 shoutouts.
Sophomore Samara Nunn scored two goals in South's 2-0 win versus Parkersburg in the sectional final, in a rematch from earlier in the season that South barley escaped with a 4-3 win.
Winning their 28th sectional title after coming back from two goals down, the Big Reds scored five unanswered goals to pull away from Ripley last week.
Like the South girls, the Big Reds hope for an all-round better effort from the offense and the defense in the first half quickly after falling into a four-goal hole in the first half, losing 5-0 at Stadium Field in October. Joseph Sheils and Omar Baryun each had two goals in the regular-season matchup. Baryun is the Knights leading goal scorer with 24 goals.
Senior Ashton Farnsworth who leads the Big Reds in goals with 15, scored a goal in the sectional win, along with senior Jamie Couch, senior Brendan Whitlatch, sophomores Terrance Wright and Grant Miller.
"I'm very proud of them, we talked in a locker room about overcoming and never giving up, down two-nothing. To come back to tie it two-two at half time then come back. We talked about the goals we gave up, but I'm very proud of the kids the way they responded to adversity," Big Red head coach Don Fosselman said. "Our kids have stepped up, our defense has gotten a lot better the last five games starting with the Morgantown, University, Capital and Ripley games, because they had some very talented athletes on those teams and we managed to negate them to no goals or maybe one goal and I give a lot of that credit to JT McKay. He's done a great job."
Contact Tyler Bennett at tbennett@newsandsentinel.com.