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Weir Starts Quickly Before Central Prevails in the End

Photo by Kyle Lutz Wheeling Central’s Addyson Thomas controls the ball while Weir’s Kayla Baseli defends during Tuesday’s game.

WHEELING — After giving up a goal 29 seconds into the game, Wheeling Central coach Julie Barack wanted to see how her team was going to respond. The Maroon Knights were able to answer the call on multiple occasions with a 5-4 victory over Weir at the East Wheeling Sports Complex on Tuesday night.

Kenadee Wayt finished with four goals and one assist for the Maroon Knights including the game-winner with 17:42 to go. Addyson Thomas perfected a corner kick that went right to Wayt. Wayt found the back of the net as the ball never touched the ground to give Wheeling Central its first lead.

“That’s what it comes down to. How are they going to respond,” Barack said. “It’s one thing to be happy and joyous when you are ahead. But how are you going to respond when you’re behind. How are you going to respond when you have one goal to go.”

The Maroon Knights seemed to have one goal to go many times as every time they would respond to a Weir score, the Red Riders would also answer right away.

Within a blink of an eye, Julia Gianni put the first point on the board for Weir, just 29 seconds in.

Wayt then secured her first goal about eight minutes later, but Sierra Huey responded one of her own giving the Red Riders the lead back.

With 21:27 to go in the first half, Maggie Fahey got in on the scoring to knot the game at 2-2 off a Wayt assist.

The theme of responding continued as Megan Cramer found the back of the net for Weir to give it a 3-2 lead.

Wayt put the final touches on an exciting first half with her second goal as the Maroon Knights responded again to a Red Riders tally.

“She’s a very special athlete,” Barack said of Wayt. “It’s a privilege to get to coach her. She’s very coachable, tries hard, supports her teammates. You could see her being selfless towards the end. You can’t ask for a better player like that. But at the same time, her sister, Ireland, is at the back end.

”We couldn’t do what we do without her in the back directing traffic and getting the ball to her. Both of them together … . You can’t deny the four goals, but you can’t deny the presence in the back that keeps me calm with a brand new goalkeeper. If we’re talking about the Wayts, I have one in the front and one in the back and it can’t get much better as a coach.”

The second half looked to be a mirror image of the first. Isabella Aperfine gave the Red Riders their final lead with 30:28 to go. Ten minutes later, Wayt responded again and secured a hat trick and to tie the game at 4-4.

“It was a good game,” Weir coach Jeremy Angelo said. “No. 4 (Kenadee Wayt) got free, we talked about it. I know she (Barack) has a couple of players that still haven’t got to play. We have a couple that haven’t played. There were two good games last year and it was another good game this year.”

Gianni, Cramer and Aperfine all had one assist for the Red Riders while Alexis Vuiller compiled six saves. Alexis Adams also saw time in goal as she secured three saves.

“It’s still early in the season,” Angelo said. “I told the girls a long time ago, ‘What we look like in August, is not what we’ll look like in October. It’s a work in progress and it’s going to be all year long.”

Elisabeth Bockstoce dished out two assists for the Maroon Knights while Ava Koontz had three saves. Chloe Vogrin had two saves.

“We still have a young team in the way of our lineup,” Barack said. “So we tried some different things out to see what works. It’s early in the season, we know we’re going to grow each game. Trying to see what can they do, how are they’re going to react. It was really fun to watch as a coach.”

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