By PAUL GOTHAM
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Liana Tata and Lindsay Lenhard connected on a goal apiece as the No. 2 Spencerport Rangers advanced to the 2022 Section V Class A Girls’ final with a 2-0 victory over No. 3 Greece Athena, Wednesday night.
“It feels really good,” Lenhard said of the win. ”We worked hard as a team and really want to get back to the finals.”
Tata snapped a scoreless with a left-footed strike from the left flank that she placed in the opposite side netting.
“We kinda had to trust ourselves that we’re a good team, and we’re going to put one in the back of the net,” Lenhard said.
Eight minutes later Lenhard added to the advantage when teammate Emily Peacock found her just inside the 18-yard box. Lenhard turned in traffic, beat a defender and connected on her team-leading 17th goal of the season.
”Emily played an amazing ball. I took a touch to get the ball on my left foot. I saw the goalie shift over, so i just needed to put it back post. It was a good feeling to score.”
Equally as important as the Spencerport tallies was the Rangers’ combined effort defensively in stopping Athena’s leading scorer, Wrianna Hudson (32 goals and 7 assists to lead all of Monroe County).
“She’s really good, ” Lenhard said of Athena’s junior forward. “We tried to keep the ball in their half to limit the long ball as much as possible . We wanted to play defense in our attacking third. As soon as the long ball was going, we tried to get as many people back to guard her. ”
Jamie Keens drew the primary assignment of marking Hudson.
“She’s one of our best defenders,” Lenhard said of her teammate.
Spencerport will play No. 4 Churchville-Chili on Saturday. The site and time are TBD.
The Rangers will be looking to win their seventh straight sectional title.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” she said of the expectation. ”We try to take it game by game. We try to work as together as possible and kinda be there for each other. We are together within the pressure.”
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