Lake County Sentinel
Wickliffe Lady Devils shut Beachwood 7-0 moving on to District Finals
BY TIM SHIRER
SPORTS EDITOR
(WICKLIFFE, OH) - The Beachwood Lady Bison soccer team traveled to Wickliffe to take on the Lady Blue Devils in a Division III District Semifinal on Monday night. With no disrespect intended toward the Lady Bison they were simply overmatched the now 17-1 Blue Devils as they ran away and hid from Beachwood at Wickliffe Memorial Stadium in front of a nice crowd of supporters.
It didn’t take Wickliffe to get on the board when Sophomore Tiana Torrence hit the back of the net with just 3:17 gone off the game clock in the first half.
Even though soccer purists who had previously watched the two teams play knew the result was never in doubt it took the Blue Devils nearly 26 minutes to tally their second goal with 10:56 left in the first half when Senior Eliza Wills hit Freshman Abigail Lait who punched the ball into the net to give Wickliffe a 2-0 lead.
In the remaining 10:56 of the first half the Blue Devils would score two more times while holding the Beachwood offense scoreless. Wills scored with 8:48 left on the first half clock and the final goal of the first half by Wickliffe came when Junior Ava Gabriel hit pay dirt with 6:09 remaining in the open half of the match.
The second half featured only three goals, all by the Blue Devils as Torrence tallied her second goal of the night with 30:45 left in the match. Wickliffe’s sixth goal of the match came when Wills, achieving the hat trick passed the ball to Gabriel with 21:26 left on the clock activating the running clock as Wickliffe led 6-0. Wills finished off her career at WMS with one final goal with 17:47 left on the clock extending the Lady Devils commanding lead to 7-0.
Wills had a memorable four days as on Friday night she eight for eight on extra point attempts and a had a 21-yard field goal for the Blue Devils football team in their 59-7 win over, you guessed it the Beachwood Bison.
To sum it up for the Lady Devils in their thirteenth shut out of the season with Junior Cam Virgillo tending the goal this season. Torrence had two goals, Gabriel had two goals and Wills had two goals and two assists.
The Lady Devils will now move on to Strongsville’s Pat Catan Stadium on Thursday night at 6 pm to play the winner of Andrews-Osborne Academy Phoenix (3-7-4) and Waynesdale (Apple Creek, OH) Golden Bears (11-5-1).
Preview of the possible District Finals matchups, Wickliffe played AOA in the regular season and defeated them 4-0 at AOA. The Blue Devils have outscored their opponents 75-10 this season while AOA has been outscored by their opponents 35-45. The Golden Bears outscored their opponents 67-22. The Golden Bears and Lady Devils played two common opponents the Kirtland Hornets and the Triway Titans. Two teams won both games. Wickliffe beat Kirtland 2-0 while Waynesdale beat them 1-0. Both teams beat Triway 6-0.
tshirer@lakecountysentinel.com follow Tim on Twitter @TBBucsTim or follow us on Twitter @LCSentinelcom
POSTED 10/23/2023 23:06
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Photo by Tim Shirer