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East Fairmont Scores Late To Escape With Win Over Wheeling Park

By NICK HENTHORN 4 min read

WHEELING -- There were 77 minutes of deadlock Thursday night as two of the premier girls soccer squads in the Mountain State did battle inside Wheeling Island Stadium. But, much as they have each game this year, the East Fairmont Bees found a way to win against the hosting Wheeling Park Patriots in a 2-0 victory that moved the still-undefeated Bees to 18-0 on the season.

After almost an entire game's worth of near-misses and physical play up and down the pitch, the Bees and Patriots were close to ending their high-profile contest in a scoreless tie. But as the game crossed its 77th minute, East Fairmont managed to push the ball down one sideline, and the Bees' Carly Manchin ripped a shot on a harsh angle that squeezed through traffic and just inside the near post to finally tack one tally onto the scoreboard at Wheeling Island Stadium.

"We knew it was going to be a good game," East Fairmont head coach Eric Wright said. "[Wheeling Park's] a good, skilled team. They’re well coached. We told our girls at halftime this was the exact game we were expecting. We knew it was going to be that way. I said, we’re going to get one whether it comes in the first minute or the last minute. We’re going to get one, we just got to keep going at it, playing our game, looking for the runs we want to make, and just being physical.

"It took until, I don’t know, maybe four minutes left. They stayed with it. They were aggressive. We had a lot of chances, we possessed the ball well and just bided our time, and once the opportunity was there, we took advantage of it."

East Fairmont spent more time on the attack than the Patriots on Thursday-- the Bees finished with 11 shots on goal against Wheeling Park's two, and held the Patriots without a shot on goal in the first half, a stretch where the visitors tested Park with seven shots on goal.

Much of Thursday, though, was played in the midfield. Neither team put a shot on goal until the 12th minute, as neither side let the other square anything up.

Wheeling Park junior keeper Maddie Kirchner turned away the Bees for most of the night in finishing with nine saves.

"I thought it was two evenly matched teams," Wheeling Park head coach Tom Smith said. "Both sides fought their hearts out. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. It was a very high-paced game. A lot of injuries, a lot of running, a work rate that needed to be stepped up for both sides to keep it competitive. Unfortunately, we played 77 minutes of scoreless soccer, and then they were fortunate enough to get a goal in the last three minutes."

Manchin's goal was the decisive score for East Fairmont, but Lily Larnerd's crosser to Sara Noechel for a goal in the 79th minute put the nail in the coffin Thursday.

Larnerd, a key piece for East, exited the game with a lower-body injury early in the second half, and remained sidelined until just a few minutes before the Bees' breakthrough.

"Lily is a smart player, and even at 50% there, we knew she could handle what we needed out of her," Wright said. "She actually gave us a little bit more than we were expecting just with her injury. But, you know, she’s a heck of a player that made a play when we needed it."

It was the 15th shutout of the year for the Bees.

East Fairmont will look to remain undefeated when they travel to face Weir on Oct. 13 in their penultimate game of the regular season. Wheeling Park (10-3-3) remains at home to face Hedgesville on Saturday.

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