Heidelberg, Patch and Marymount
capture European girls' soccer titles
By Rusty Bryan, Stars
and Stripes
Peter Jaeger / Stars and Stripes
Jana Neufer (2) of Bonn and Francesca Battistelli (6) of Marymount battle for the ball. |
HEIDELBERG, Germany – The girls from Heidelberg, Patch and Marymount high schools
made it look as easy as I, II, III in winning European soccer championships on Saturday.
In addition to posting clear-cut championship game victories, the teams injected some
appropriate numbers into the mix, too.
Marymount defeated Bonn International School 3-1, giving the Royals their third
straight Division III crown with the help, for the last time, of the remarkable
Battistelli triplets.
Francesca Battistelli scored twice, Cristina Battistelli added the third goal and
Stefania Battistelli distributed the ball flawlessly as the Royals put on a clinic of
effective positional soccer against a Bonn team that could field only 12 players on a day
warm enough that even the most fit players didn’t object to a bit of a breather on
the bench now and then.
Bonn’s Marte Arneson, off an assist from Mackenzie Fleming, did manage to score
the first goal of the tournament against Marymount goalkeeper Brittany Pacini, but it came
too late in the game to have any bearing on the outcome.
Despite the Battistellis’ heroics, Marymount's Jessica Gaiani was voted tourney
MVP by the Division III coaches. She certainly was against Bonn, winning the ball every
time it came into her area of the field and launching a Marymount attack that forced
stand-her-ground BIS goalkeeper Beatrice Van Kalbermatten to make 18 saves.
"We really wanted to win this one," said Francesca Battistelli, who will join
her sisters at the University of Washington next fall, "because it was our third in a
row."
Division II
Peter Jaeger / Stars and Stripes
Kate Donoughe of Patch scores the third goal against ISB Saturday. |
Patch couldn’t come up with any triplets, but the Lady Panthers were able to call
on the Van Leunen sisters as it defeated International School of Brussels 4-1 to win
Division II.
Senior Julie Van Leunen scored twice and sister Diane, a sophomore who was named MVP of
the tournament, dished out a pair of assists as Patch claimed its second straight Division
II crown and kept its winning streak, which dates back to the opening game of the 1999
season, open for another season.
Junior Joanna Miller and freshman Kate Donoughe also scored for Patch, which broke away
from a 1-1 halftime tie by enlarging the field and getting meaner in the second half,
according to senior Lauren Novak.
"We spread the field and got more aggressive," Novak said. "We started
to beat them to the ball and have more people up to take the crosses."
One of those crosses, from Diane Van Leunen, found Miller running into the box from the
right side. Miller banged it home with 25 minutes to play, and the Lady Panthers were up
to stay.
"Once Joanna made it, it was pump time," Novak said. "We felt like we
could do it."
It also opened the floodgates, with Donoughe scoring off a feed from overlapping
sweeper Erin Brown just two minutes later, and Julie Van Leunen curling a screamer into
the net from 20 yards out on a free kick.
ISB, which was unable to take advantage of three fine chances the Raiders created in
the first half, got its goal from Nina Bigrass off an assist from Kate Tuthill. But the
Raiders were frustrated all through the second half, mostly by Brown, who foiled every
chance the Raiders made.
"It took us a little time to get started," Brown said, but after we got over
our initial qualms, we got it started."
Division I
Peter Jaeger / Stars and Stripes
Heidelberg's Jessica Burger gets tangled up with Courtney Schaal of Ramstein. |
The Lady Lions finally got over the hump, rolling past Ramstein 4-0 and winning the
European Division I title that graduated Ramstein goalkeeper Buffy Wojciehowski deprived
them of last year. They were led by an all-out effort by senior MVP Jessica Burger.
"It was my lucky day," said Burger, who opened the scoring with an astounding
50-yard howitzer shot that carried over the head of Ramstein keeper Lauren Fellows three
minutes into the game.
Three minutes later, Heidelberg freshman Andrea Wisniewski, sent charging down the left
wing after teammate Michelle Thorne had twice won the ball from Ramstein attackers,
hammered a rocket past Fellows for a 2-0 lead, and three minutes after that, Jackie
Bennett’s hard work in retaining possession of the ball deep in the Ramstein end paid
off when she shoved the ball to Thorne, who rapped it home for a 3-0 halftime edge.
The Lady Lions added an insurance goal with 20 minutes left in the game, when another
Wisniewski thunderbolt rebounded across the goal mouth, and Lindsay Vickers knocked it
into the net.
"We were really pumped for this one," said the Sacramento State-bound Burger,
whose Lady Lions had won the previous two regular-season titles only to come up short in
the Europeans. "After the last two years, we wanted to go out with a bang."
Back to May stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
