No. 3 Allegany ends No. 1 Mtn. Ridge's streak at 10 games
Oct. 20—CUMBERLAND — Allegany didn't get a lot of chances on Tuesday night, but the Campers made the most of them.
Avery Miller gave Allegany a jolt with a score in the ninth minute of action, and Olivia Looker and Elexa Mazuran hooked up on a corner kick to give the Campers a 2-0 lead at the half.
Two goals proved to be enough, as a physical Allegany defensive effort and the goalkeeping of Shylah Taylor held off a high-powered Mountain Ridge offense to end the Miners' winning streak at 10 games.
"It really helps when you put a ball in the net early," Allegany head coach Adam Sterne said. "(Mountain Ridge) did a good job, even with a couple people out, of still controlling the middle of the field. We have to clean that up.
"I'm tickled to death at where we were at the beginning of the year, not being able to pound the ball in the net, to where we are now."
The Allegany triumph puts the Campers in the No. 2 position in the Class 1A West playoff chase, which would allow them to host a semifinal game at Greenway Avenue Stadium next week.
Mountain Ridge, meanwhile, has already locked up the top spot. The Miners had the bulk of the possession Tuesday and took more shot attempts on goal, 8-5, but they just couldn't break through.
"I thought we possessed the ball, we had it in our third, we just couldn't finish," Mountain Ridge head coach Todd Snyder said. "They took advantage of the couple little opportunities that they got, and they wanted the ball more than we did.
"They had somebody at our back at all times. I think that was part of their game plan. They kind of took away our outsides. We recognized that, but it was difficult to get the girls to start finding the inside seams instead of the outside seams."
As many teams have found out over the past two seasons, it's imperative to keep tabs on Miller in transition. Mountain Ridge didn't for an instant early on, and paid the price.
Miller broke free and made a run down the left side, and she fired a shot from the left side of the box into the right corner for a 1-0 Allegany lead with 31:21 left in the first half.
"I thought if we'd have bodied up a little bit up front, they don't get that space, kind of push them off the ball," Snyder said of Miller's goal.
Allegany manufactured a second goal 10 minutes later on a set piece. Looker served a ball to the far post, and Mazuran was there to head it home for a two-goal Alco lead with 21:46 left.
"It was a beautiful ball put on the back half, and (Mountain Ridge keeper) Bayleigh (Lamberson) is taught to go towards ball," Sterne said. "It's nothing on her to have the ball put over, it's just a really nice ball put in a perfect spot.
"I try to get people near side of net and far side of net because you never know where the ball's going to drop. ... There were two girls there on the back side, and you could just see that she was perfectly lined up."
Mountain Ridge had its chances throughout. Allegany became too physical defensively at times during the second half, affording the Miners' star forward Sydney Snyder, the reigning Offensive Player of the Year, direct free kicks inside of 30 yards on more than one occasion.
In each instance, the Campers' wall denied Snyder or Taylor came up with the save — she had eight to Lamberson's three.
"Sydney had some nice shots that were hard at goal, and Shylah did her job," Sterne said. "I asked her to step up her game and she did. She made some really good saves, she came out when she needed to and she did her job back there.
"Even the defense, they stepped up when they needed to, especially during the second half. When you're up 2-0, you can't ever let off the gas because Mountain Ridge will put two on you before you know it."
While Sterne was pleased with his set-piece defense, he wasn't happy with the number of fouls the Campers committed to give Snyder those opportunities. Allegany had nine fouls to the Miners' five.
"Early in the year we were very physical, and we had to back that down because we gave up too many fouls," he said. "Tonight we got more fouls called on us than we have since the beginning of the year. I like being physical, but we have to make sure it's clean."
The end of the game was marred by an ankle injury to Mountain Ridge junior Taylor Farris, who had to be carried off the pitch by Lamberson. Farris sustained the injury with 4:25 left on a slide tackle and did not return.
Mountain Ridge (11-2 overall, 6-1 Western Maryland Athletic Conference) will try to start a new winning streak on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at No. 4 Northern (7-1-3 overall, 4-1-2 WestMAC). A win or tie by the Miners would secure a conference title.
While Mountain Ridge entered Tuesday having won 10 straight, many of those contests were far closer, for far longer, than Todd Snyder expected from his talented squad.
How the Miners bounce back at Northern could be a turning point in their season with the playoffs right around the corner.
"It's not that we've been playing terribly, but we don't have that killer instinct to finish teams off," Snyder said. "We kept telling them, 'You mess around with a hornet's nest, eventually you're going to get stung.' Tonight we messed around with a hornet's nest, and they stung us.
"It's the end of the season. How are we going to respond? It's not like we don't have some time to clean things up and make the corrections that we need to make. They're not big corrections. Some of it is just a mentality thing. We're really looking for a true leader. A lot of girls want to be a leader."
Allegany (9-1-3 overall, 4-1-2 WestMAC) hosts Southern (5-8 overall, 2-5 WestMAC) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The Campers have won five straight games, four of which were by shutout.
"We know that they're going to come down with confidence," Sterne said of Southern. "They play a defensive set to where it's difficult when you try to get the ball in there deep. ... They are a much-improved team, and it's a nice program that Mike (Warne) has up there."
Alex Rychwalski is a sports reporter at the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @arychwal.
