Credit: Chris Christian
The Saucon Valley Panther Girls’ soccer team squared off against the Southern Lehigh Spartans in the 2018 District XI 3A semifinal on Thursday. With the teams splitting victories in meetings earlier in the season, this promised to be a competitive matchup. The Panthers defeated the Spartans back in late September 2-1 and the Spartans got their revenge in the Colonial League semifinal on October 16 by a 1-0 score.
It was a spirited pack of Saucon Valley Panthers who took the field to start the game that was held on the turf at Whitehall High School. Saucon seemed to be the aggressor early on and were rewarded with a goal off a corner kick by Appoline Neveu. It was a major scrum in front of the net with multiple touches in the box. It was unclear who scored, but the Panthers pounced on a 1-0 lead with 23 minutes remaining in the first half.
The Saucon Valley advantage was short-lived. Five minutes later the Spartans’ super-talented Kristen Cocozza found space just outside the 18-yardline and was able to turn with the ball uncontested and power a blast upper-90 into the back of the net. The teams remained deadlocked at the halftime break.
Southern Lehigh seemed to have the offensive advantage in the opening minutes of the second half. With 28 minutes left to play in the game and the Spartans applying the pressure, Lizzy Kanzler was able to hit what would be the game-winner.
The Saucon girls continued to work hard and went down swinging, but Spartan goalkeeper Ellie Cassel and her defense were able to turn away all Panther challenges.
Southern Lehigh will advance to the District XI championship game against Blue Mountain on Oct. 30. Blue Mountain was a 2-0 winner over Pottsville in the other 3A semifinal.
After making a run and finishing unbeaten in Colonial League regular season play, Saucon Valley’s 2018 season comes to a close with a 13-4-1 record.
For more photos of the game by Chris Christian, please scroll down. To purchase any of these and other photos, please visit his photography website.
About This Series: Andrew & Sonya Hughes of Hellertown are sponsoring girls soccer coverage on Saucon Source to help recognize the achievements of female high school athletes here in Saucon Valley, and in tribute to their own daughters, who were both stand-out student athletes at their high school, where they played softball, soccer, basketball and field hockey. Between the two of them they earned 14 varsity letters in high school. “Female athletics was a big part of our family life for many years, but that journey ended at the high school level six years ago,” Andrew Hughes says. “Through those amazing experiences we also noticed that females don’t seem to have the same level of exposure and support as their male counterparts. So we are very sensitive to situations where we perceive an imbalance of exposure of female student athlete participation in competitive high school sports. We also like to encourage greater involvement of young people in athletics. We would like to help the girls gain more exposure at your news source by adopting some girls high school teams.” Saucon Source thanks Andrew & Sonya Hughes for their thoughtful and generous support of our local sports coverage.
