Pickin' Splinters

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Roxstrom lifts Olympia in overtime

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Batavia’s Mackenzie Harmon (17) receives the ball along the sideline with Olympia’s Kyleigh Bathe (19) defending on the play. (Photo: PAUL GOTHAM)

By PAUL GOTHAM

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Greece Olympia girls’ soccer team bided its time.

Hannah Roxstrom delivered at the moment when her team needed it most.

Roxstrom converted on a corner kick in the first overtime of Tuesday’s Monroe County Division IV match, and Olympia went on to defeat Batavia, 2-1.

“I’ve been trying to get one all season off a corner,” she said. “I finally got it.”

The 5-foot-9 midfielder positioned herself along the far post where she nodded in teammate Jordan Walker’s service from the right corner flag.

“I kinda shuffled forward and then just leaned into it,” she said.

“We’ve been waiting all season for that goal, all season,” Olympia head coach Danielle Boneberg said. “The most important game of the season she did it. I’m so proud of her. It was awesome.

“To be that strong in the air as a ninth grader? Oh my gosh. It’s amazing. We are always like ‘okay, Hannah this one’s for you. This one’s for you.’ And she’ll hit it off her head and it will go up. She’s always been unlucky with it. That one. She deserves that.”

With the win, Olympia avenged an earlier loss and took a game-and-a-half lead over Batavia for first place in the division.

“We had a lot of goal-scoring opportunities, really good, strong ones,” Boneberg noted. “I felt good about that. I feel really good about this game. I’m really happy how we adjusted the defense. We learned a lot moving forward.”

It didn’t start out that way.

Batavia’s Anna Varland slipped behind the Olympia defense for a Blue Devil lead with 20:37 remaining in the first half.

The goal was reminiscent of the first meeting between the two teams when Campbell Riley scored on a counter-attack situation in a 1-nil Batavia win.

“We started playing their game a little bit which frustrated me,” Boneberg admitted. “But we got it back and played our game again.”

Boneberg made a change along her backline that paid dividends.

“We moved Maddie Walker on her (Varland),” the 16th-year head coach explained. “She (Walker) did a lot of the ‘man-marking’ toward the end and freed up Laynee Hysner who’s our sweeper. She was able to play with a little more depth.

“Maddie’s never done that before. We learned a lot. She stepped into that role seamlessly, shut the girl down. After we made that switch, there were no more goal-scoring opportunities. We had our defense under control. We lost it for a little while, but we learned from it.”

Despite the efforts of Batavia’s defense, Kuditra Derosa leveled the match with 5:13 remaining in the first half. The senior forward ran on to a lead from teammate Sarah Tawaf for her division-leading 25th goal of the season.

“They took our best goal scorer, and they had her triple-teamed,” Boneberg said. “They took her out of the play.”

The Spartans had a series of four consecutive corner kicks midway through the second half but came away empty-handed.

“Our corners are good,” Boneberg said. “We have girls this year that will put their head on it. I was surprised we didn’t score off those other opportunities. We had another chance, and we did it.”

Elizabeth Faulkner made five saves. The win was the fifth straight for Olympia (11-2-0/6-1-0). The Spartans host Attica on Saturday before welcoming HF-L for a rematch next Wednesday. A win over the Cougars, and the Spartans will clinch their second division title in three years.

Batavia (7-4-1/4-1-1) had won five of six entering Tuesday’s contest. The Blue Devils host Odyssey on Saturday in a division match before traveling to play at Le Roy. Batavia hosts Eastridge next Wednesday. They will need to win out and get some help to claim the division.

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