Wheeling Park delivered their school an OVAC title on Saturday inside Wheeling Island Stadium with a 4-0 victory over the rival Hawks. The Patriots received two goals from all-stater Julia Dunaway, and one apiece from Corin McFarland and Aria Swartz.

“We played well today,” Wheeling Park head coach Tom Smith said. “We could have used a little more motion. We were kind of flat at times, but we straightened it out– and University is a good team, they’re well coached. I think we have a little bit more experienced players today and that kind of showed in the result.”

Wheeling Park lost in the OVAC championship game last year, falling to Parkersburg South, but were able to claim the title this year. For University, a young team with seven starters who are either freshmen or sophomores, the conference tournament has proven a good experience, even if the Hawks did not capture the gold.

“Wheeling Park is a very, very good team and a very deserving champion,” University head coach Alan Peace said. “The summary of the game is, they were a better team than us on the day and they deserved to win. We’re thrilled that we got to the final. We’re a very young team and this will be good for us in our development. Wheeling Park showed today they’re a candidate to win the state championship and they’re a great team.

“We’ve got a lot of freshmen starting, and four sophomores. We really didn’t know what to expect from our team. We started off a little rough, as you would expect with a young team, but they’ve been growing together as a group as the season’s gone on. Got some big wins which gave us some confidence and we were just thrilled to be here. It’s a great reward for them and they deserve it.”

Wheeling Park had nine shots on goal Saturday; University had two. Hawks keeper Caitlyn Stout finished with five saves on the day.

McFarland got the scoring started by cleaning up a deflection in the sixth minute. McFarland has been a key piece of Park’s attack this year.

“[McFarland] is starting to make some runs up top,” Smith said of the junior “More importantly, she kind of cleans up the mess that’s in front of the box as far as following up shots, she’s trying to be a playmaker up there also as a point man, just getting the ball over her foot quickly and then dropping it back when the opportunities aren’t there.”

Duanway showed off her speed in a breakaway opportunity which she converted in the 17th minute to make it 2-0 Patriots.

Swartz scored off of another deflection in the 21st minute- both her and McFarland’s scores came off of deflected shots from Dunaway- and Dunaway punctuated the game with a second-half goal in the 62nd minute.

Though they celebrated with the trophy Saturday, Smith said his team is deadset on never settling.

“Every game is a learning process,” Smith said. “We have to get better formationally. The girls know that. I feed it into their heads as much as I can. We keep trying to do some things, but we’re not just completely– we don’t have it all together yet. So every game is learning for us, and each day gets a little bit better. Every game we’re striving to get to that stage, and we want to go into whatever’s next with the best opportunity to win every game.”