State College beats weather, Altoona

Gordon Brunskill

STATE COLLEGE — The State College girls’ soccer team has a rule — one of their many team rules — that no one can talk or complain about the weather until the game is over.

CDT/Michelle Bixby

State College's Laura Lovins (24) tries to kick the ball out of Altoona's Stephanie Hippo's (13) control during the Altoona at State College girls soccer game Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009. CDT/Michelle Bixby

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That applies to temperature, rain or, in Wednesday’s instance, wind.

“I talked about having to take the environment into consideration, but there was no whining, no complaining,” State College coach Kevin Morooney said. “It was, ‘This is what we’ve got today, this is what we have to deal with,’ and I thought that served us pretty well today as the match started.”

The mind over matter philosophy worked for the Lady Little Lions, who ended up blowing Altoona off the South Track Field 6-0.

Kelsey Gill scored twice, Lauren Graham added a goal and two assists and Lauren Kenney, Rita Gates and Paige Fry also found the net for the Lady Little Lions (10-1).

The blustery conditions were the worst Morooney, who has coached 20 of the program’s 22 years of existence, could remember ever having to endure. Made more troublesome by the field’s artificial surface, even balls placed for free kicks were moved by heavy gusts, and extra sandbags were used to anchor the goal frames.

“I can only remember one game like this ever,” Morooney said. “And that was in Erie — when you expect it when you’re next to one of the largest bodies of water in the world. That stuff’s going to happen.”

The only discussion about the weather, as Morooney noted, was how to deal with it: Goalie kicks would fly longer with the wind, shorter against it.

“The bounces were tough,” defender Katelyn Gill said. “We tried to keep it on the ground so it wouldn’t bother us.”

Altoona (4-10) has been struggling this year and lost 4-0 in the first meeting between the rivals in early September, but odd conditions can turn into a great equalizer.

“You have to adjust and get closer to the keeper or further away,” Kelsey Gill said. “The bounces are bad, too, because it takes away the bounces.”

Oddly, State College’s offense took off playing toward the wind in the second half instead of with it.

The Lady Little Lions scored four of their goals after halftime and outshot the Lady Mountain Lions 17-1 after holding a mere 7-6 edge in shots during the first 40 minutes.

“Things like that (wind) doesn’t affect a team like State College,” Altoona coach Pat McKinney said. “They’re pretty solid all the way around, all aspects of the game.”

However, the first two shots State College put on goal made it into the net.

The first was set up by Graham, carrying the ball into the penalty box before crossing it to Gill for a redirection past keeper Didi Rizzo. Gill then started the sequence for the second goal by picking off a clearing pass, getting the ball to Laura Lovins, who in turn set up Graham for the score.

“It was mostly just connecting up top and we did well,” Kelsey Gill said.

After 15 minutes of second- half play, the Lady Little Lions poured on the offense to put away the victory.

Graham triggered the first score by feeding Kenney to complete a counterattack, Jamie Glass sent a cross to Gill at the top of the penalty box for the next score eight minutes later, then Meagan Morooney picked off another clearing pass and fed the ball to Gates, who beat Rizzo one-on- one. Fry finished the scoring, taking a pass from Megan Porter and slipping the ball past Rizzo from a tight angle.

Making the lead stand up at the other end were Sarah Sallade and Ginger Wool-ridge, who teamed for the team’s eighth shutout of the season and third in a row. The team is riding a streak of 251:46 of shutout time, has outscored its opponents 23-1 over the last five games and 42-5 for the season.

They just had to negotiate some unusual conditions to earn the victory.

“It was all pregame discussions of what we have to think about,” Morooney said. “As the match wore on some of our girls made some pretty good decisions with flighted balls in the air, taking the wind into consideration.”

State College faces a big test back on South Track Field on Saturday with a 2:30 p.m. meeting with Springdale, the No. 1 Class AA team in the state in this week’s Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association poll.

Gordon Brunskill can be reached at 231-4608.