By ASHTON TOWNSEND
SPENCERPORT N.Y. — The Churchville-Chili Saints (17-3-0) won 2-0 over the Frontier Falcons (16-3-1) to clinch the program’s first regional title since 2003. Freshman Elise Faix and senior Jillian Ewing led the way with a goal each.
“All season long, we’ve been focusing on the basics,” Churchville-Chili head coach Brooke Elnicky said. “We’ve been trying to perfect those all season and I think tonight was a great example of that.”
It was all Saints for the first 24 minutes of the first half as they produced three shots on net, all saved by keeper Sophie Cleary for the Falcons. But, at the 26-minute mark, Jill Ewing slotted a low-driven cross in the side net from junior Ava Fedele to break the scoreless tie.
“All game we had a lot of opportunities,” Ewing said. “On the goal I was there for support, there were a ton of defenders in the box, it skipped by them and it went to be and I hit the shot i wanted to hit.”
A quieter end to the half as C-C’s defense stood stout and allowed no shots on net. The Saints ended with five on net at the half.
“We always talk about taking it one game at a time, but within each game we need to take it one half at a time,” Elnicky said. “We took a moment to be proud that we won the first half, but we started the second half at 0-0.”
At halftime, Julia Ford checked in for Frontier to close out the game. Ford dealt with a shot by Fedele just three minutes into the half. Soon after that, Ford came out late and took out C-C’s Alexis Olson to cause a penalty kick.
It was freshman Elise Faix chosen to take the penalty. A deep breath, a run-up and a low driven shot to the bottom left corner made it 2-0 for the Saints.
“I just felt really honored to take it,” Faix said. “I had a lot of confidence taking it, my teammates were cheering me on and scoring it was just really great.”
“We were in a great position to be honest with you, I think there were several people who could take the PK,” Elnicky said. “We worked on PKs all season long, and she (Faix) had been playing composed until that point, so we just knew she’d have a cool head to be able to make it.”
Frontier ended with one shot on net for the game. The Saints finished with 10. This is Churchville’s seventh shutout in its last eight games.
Churchville will face either Section IX’s Warwick or Section IV’s Horseheads in the NYS Class AA semifinals on Nov. 15th, 9:30 a.m. at Dryden High School.
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