Girls Soccer: Dragoni’s goal wins it for Garnet Valley

NETHER PROVIDENCE — The winning goal epitomized the match. Garnet Valley senior defender Maddie Mansi played a long ball from her half with her teammates retreating and Strath Haven’s back line racing to the center circle. Four Jaguars lingered in an offside position as the ball landed in the Panthers’ side of the field. It appeared to be an innocuous play, just another time that Strath Haven’s high line thwarted an opponent’s attack.

Only Garnet Valley’s Britney Dragoni read the ball perfectly. She held her run near midfield so as to stay onside, then raced onto the ball. Dragoni was free on goal in a flash. Strath Haven keeper Katie Fisher met her at the edge of the 18-yard box, but could only get a hand on the forward’s ankle.

Dragoni staggered, collected herself, and slotted the ball into the vacated goal to give Garnet Valley a 3-2 victory at Strath Haven’s George L. King Field.

“I felt like I knew what I was going to do,’ Dragoni said of the winning play. “I pushed the ball around (Fisher). I was close to falling but it was important that I put the ball in for my team.’

It was the sophomore’s second goal of the game. She assisted on a third.

“I can’t say enough great things about Britney,’ said Garnet Valley coach Paul Costa. “I’ve watched her grow and she just jeeps getting better and better. She’s tremendous.’

Dragoni’s pace as well as her link up play with midfielder Maddie Ireland helped solve Strath Haven’s offside trap on all three Garnet Valley goals.

“We knew they liked to push up entering the game,’ said Ireland. “We had to make runs from the midfield to beat it.’

Strath Haven, despite the obvious pace of the Jaguars and some questionable officiating, continued with the high defensive line throughout the match.

“We tend to stick with what we know. We play our game,’ Panthers head coach Gino Miraglia said. “We live and die by [the offside trap].’

The first goal of the game proved that. Ireland chipped a ball in behind the back line that Dragoni reached first. Fisher, playing well outside her net, made a desperate tackle to try and stop the move. The ball ricocheted off Dragoni’ knee and crawled across the goal line.

Strath Haven responded less than two minutes later through its own star sophomore. Lizzie King fired a shot past Ashley Bufano to even the score at one with 31:14 remaining in the first half.

Garnet Valley retook the lead with just a minute left on the clock amid controversy. Again Dragoni found herself alone with Fisher after running onto a ball that was lofted over the top. Her shot deflected off the keeper’s leg and landed at Ireland’s feet to the right of the goal. Ireland fired it at the open net, and Dragoni, in an apparent offside position, tapped the ball in.

Miraglia and his assistants were furious. They believed the goal should have been disallowed, but the referee closest to the play was out of position. He couldn’t see the play.

No matter, Dragoni said the ball crossed the line before she touched it anyway.

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