Sigonella's Sam Corey, left, heads the ball away from Alconbury's Matt Tropoulos. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
Sigonella's Sam Corey, left, heads the ball away from Alconbury's Matt Tropoulos. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
Ankara's players celebrate their winning 3-2 goal over Rota, in a Division IV game on opening day of the DODDS-Europe soccer finals. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
Hanau goalkeeper Jasmine Hawkins punches the ball away in front of Sigonella's Jenny Patron in a Division IV game that ended 0-0, at the DODDS-Europe soccer finals. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
Lajes' Janel Thomas celebrates her goal with teammate Anne Briggs as Lajes beat Alconbury 3-1 on two Thoma goals in the Division IV game. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
Alconbury's Joe Bass, left, and Sigonella's Dave Rice fight for the ball in their opening day match at the DODDS-Europe soccer championships in Kaiserslautern on Wednesday. Alconbury won, 1-0. (Michael Abrams / S&S)
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — One unbeaten No. 1 seed suffered a scare and another absorbed an upset Wednesday as the European Divisions I, II and IV soccer tournaments kicked off their three- and four-day runs.
Top Division II girls seed Mannheim, 7-0-0 coming into the tournament, needed a second-half goal by freshman Anna Cressler to turn back winless No. 10 Ansbach 2-1. The Heidelberg girls, seeded fourth out of five D-I teams, stunned previously unbeaten Kaiserslautern 3-2.
Mannheim girls 2, Ansbach 1: "I told the girls ‘Welcome to the tournament,’ " Mannheim assistant coach Martin Goering said after the Lady Bison’s narrow escape. "I told them there are always upsets. I’ve been coming to soccer and basketball Europeans for 18 years. You can’t go by the records."
Alanna Crockwell, a sophomore who missed all last season with an injury, put Mannheim up 1-0 in the first half. But after Ansbach’s Amadine Martin slipped in the equalizer after intermission, Mannheim was forced to wait until just two minutes remained in the game to benefit from Cressler’s bouncing shot into the Ansbach net.
Mannheim was playing its first game on the quick artificial surface at the Rote Teufel Sportspark; Ansbach had tested the surface earlier in the day in a 4-0 loss to defending champion Vilseck. "It’s a much faster game," Goering said of playing on the man-made turf. "A lot of girls don’t have the skills for it."
Ansbach coach David Hyde said his squad took heart from staying in the game until the end. "When you’re No. 10 and you’re playing No. 1," he said, "you come out trying your best to keep it close. But after we scored, we were trying our best to win."
Heidelberg girls 3, Kaiserslautern 2: Heidelberg limited two-time All-Europe striker Liana Knight to a lone penalty-kick goal and rode the momentum of an early score to the upset.
"We ended up marking Knight man-to-man and switched almost to a double-team when we had a chance to win at the end," Lions coach Jim McCauley said of the neutralization by Christine Bremer and Maggie Cutler of Knight, who has scored 11 goals in her last three games. "The only shot she got all day was a penalty kick with three minutes to play that made it 3-2."
McCauley credited his back line – "the defense moved to the ball quickly," he said — and Knight’s health for stymieing her.
"She’s a good player," McCauley said, "and she played hard, but she was a little bit sick and that might have slowed her down."
Kate Garner played a role in all three Heidelberg scores, McCauley said, assisting on scores by Asia Tucker and Cutler and banging one home herself off a feed from Lauren Brousseau.
Naples girls 2, Vilseck 1: Courtnee Wilson sped up the middle of the field against a napping Vilseck defense in the game’s opening moments and scored her first of two goals to get the Wildcats on the way to upsetting the defending D-II champions.
"It definitely helped to score that early," said Wilson, who made a nearly identical goal in the second half against another defensive lapse. "It takes away a lot of your nerves."
Amy Lawton and Dominique Aljabi got the deep balls to Wilson.
Heidelberg boys 2, Ramstein 0: Top-seeded D-I power Heidelberg got first-half goals from Kevin Beerman and Marvin Sibley and turned things over to a defense that has allowed just one goal all season. The defense responded by requiring goalkeeper Zach Harrington to make just two saves against the Royals.
European championshipsKAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — First-day results Wednesday from the DODDS-Europe boys and girls soccer championships, which end Saturday at Ramstein High School:
Boys
Division I round robin
Heidelberg 2, Ramstein 0International School of Brussels 2, Kaiserslautern 0Lakenheath 1, Ramstein 1Heidelberg 7, Kaiserslautern 0ISB vs. Lakenheath, late
Division II pool play
Mannheim 1, Ansbach 0Black Forest Academy 3, Aviano 0Vilseck 3, Naples 2Patch 0, Bitburg 0SHAPE 6, Ansbach 1Wiesbaden 4, Aviano 2Vilseck 1, Mannheim 0BFA 4, Bitburg 1Wiesbaden 0, Patch 0SHAPE 1, Naples 0
Division III
No games scheduled
Division IV round robin
Rota 2, Brussels 0Alconbury 7, Incirlik 0Sigonella 3, Menwith Hill 1Alconbury 1, Sigonella 0Ankara 3, Rota 2Brussels 3, Ankara 0Incirik vs. Menwith Hill, late
Girls
Division I round robin
International School of Brussels 1, Lakenheath 1Ramstein 1, Heidelberg 1Kaiserslautern 4, Lakenheath 0ISB vs. Ramstein, late
Division II pool play
Vilseck 4, Ansbach 0SHAPE 2, Wiesbaden 0Bitburg 2, Naples 1Black Forest Academy 1, Aviano 0Mannheim 2, Ansbach 1Naples 2, Vilseck 1Patch 6, Wiesbaden 1SHAPE 1, Black Forest Academy 1Aviano 2, Patch 1Mannheim 1, Bitburg 1
Division III
No games scheduled
Division IV round robin
Brussels 1, Ankara 1Hanau 0, Sigonella 0Lajes 3, Alconbury 1Brussels 3, Lajes 0Hanau 3, Menwth Hill 2Sigonella vs. Menwith Hill, lateAnkara vs. Alconbury, late
