Photo courtesy of Steel City FC
The Steel City FC women’s team battled Flower City Union FC and reached a 1-1 draw on Sunday at the Rochester Community Sports Complex in Rochester, NY.
The tie keeps Steel City FC (4 W-0 L-2 D, 11 points) in contention for a place in the United Women’s Soccer League postseason, while Flower City (3-3-1) is eliminated.
In the 15th minute, the hosts were awarded an indirect free kick in the penalty area after Steel City goalkeeper Payton O’Malley (Chartiers Valley/Bowling Green) touched a back pass in the box with her hands. Maria Karipidis took the free kick and passed it to Chloe DeLyser, whose attempt was cleared on the line.
In a fairly even game, Steel City had the edge at times in the first 45 minutes, but missed three good chances, including two by Audrey Bianco (Hampton/CMU).
After Bianco took a ball from Courtney Carter in the 25th minute, her 20-yard shot from the right side bounced off the crossbar. In the 34th minute, Flower City 1872 goalkeeper Sam Haley had to save another shot from Bianco, then Marissa Salisbury (formerly of WVU/Riverhounds Academy) put the rebound over the bar.
Head coach Tom Ovenden made changes to his team’s formation at half-time but they still couldn’t find the opening goal and they finally conceded a goal against Flower City in the 70th minute when Maya Ikewood, moving forward from her centre-back position, intercepted a pass and played a through ball to Bridget Merkel.
Merkel fired a left-footed shot into the bottom right corner for her second goal of the season without getting past goalkeeper O’Malley. It was Ikewood’s first assist of the year.
In the 86th minute, Kat McGuire had gained some momentum and fired a shot from 22 yards out quick enough to beat Flower City’s diving goalkeeper Sam Haley into the far corner.
Riding on the momentum of the equaliser, Steel City FC almost scored again in the 88th minute, but the goal was disallowed due to a foul against SCFC.
Since the goal was scored by a homegrown player (McGuire, a rising senior at Butler HS), Ovenden was excited to see a player from Steel City FC’s academy program make an impression on the first team.
“Kat played a game with great maturity today. As the sole pivot, she controlled large parts of the game and finally scored the equaliser from 24 metres,” said Ovenden.
“(She is) a real talent from the SCFC academy. Her potential is really very high, I look forward to watching her further development.”
Special thanks to Marikaye DeTemple of Steel City and additional game details courtesy of Michael Lewis of Front Row Soccer.
Full game replay
