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Soccer Game Secondary For Linsly, Wheeling Park

Cadets, Patriots raise awareness for Breast Cancer

Photo by Josh Strope Members of the Wheeling Park and Linsly girls’ soccer teams join with breast cancer survivors and youth players during Thursday’s annual game to raise awareness for breast cancer.

WHEELING — Rain may have put a damper on the action Thursday at Wheeling Island Stadium, but the message was still loud and clear.

Wheeling Park edged Linsly, 1-0, but the score hardly mattered to those in attendance. For the eighth straight year, the teams work pink and helped raise awareness for breast cancer.

At the conclusion of the game, the teams joined together along the sideline with area youth soccer players and breast cancer survivors to let pink balloons into the air.

“Personally, my mother-in-law, Jane Hanna, who taught and retired from Country Day School, is a breast cancer survivor so it was very important for us to outreach to the community and to invite all the young girls — we were hoping to have them play at halftime — to invite them to walk out with the team and be ball girls and be a part of it,” Wheeling Park coach Carrie Hanna said. “And also to invite our breast cancer survivors from the stands to walk out with the team and be recognized and be honored and raise awareness.”

It was a sentiment shared by Linsly coach Chelsea Miazgowicz.

“Every year that we have done this, I know the girls really appreciate what we do,” Miazgowicz said. “There are a lot of teams that do something like this and it is really important for us because it does hit home. It hits closely for a few of our girls so it is an important thing to be aware of and raise awareness.”

The officials were able to get the game into halftime, but then the thunder and lightning came. Shortly after, it was decided the game — which can be official at halftime — was over.

As for the action on the field, it was all Wheeling Park (10-2-3) from the whistle.

The Cadets (5-9-1) were able to hang with the Patriots, but all it took was one mistake.

Linsly tried to clear the ball on a goal kick, but it instead went right to Makayla Gammon. The senior forward took the ball untouched into the Linsly penalty box and beat Cadets goalie Vivian Allison for the game-winner.

“Just very smart,” Hanna said. “She read the goal kick and was very strong on the ball. She took her touch to goal and was very composed on her finish.”

It was all Wheeling Park needed as Linsly was unable to get much offense going. The Patriots outshot the Cadets, 5-1.

“Our girls have been playing really hard this entire season and we are winding down now,” Miazgowicz said. “We’ve had a few injuries along the way and we are down to limited subs so this game was a challenge for us.

“We knew Wheeling Park was going to come out really strong and unfortunately, they got a nice shot off and there was nothing we could do about it. They are really strong at passing and moving the ball quickly so we were unable to get too many shots.”

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