Girls’ Soccer: Blue Mountain repeats as Schuylkill League champions
Blue Mountain poses with the Schuylkill League championship trophy after defeating North Schuylkill 2-0 in Thursday's girls' soccer final at the Eagles' Nest (Photo by Leroy Boyer).
ORWIGSBURG — Blue Mountain’s players danced on the sideline, posed for photos and were still partying on the field long after the crowd had headed home.
It was a night of celebration for the Eagles.
Hailey Scheuer scored a pair of goals and Makayla Keck stopped all four North Schuylkill shots as Blue Mountain captured its second straight Schuylkill League girls’ soccer championship with a 2-0 victory over the Spartans.
The crown is the ninth overall for Blue Mountain, which became the first team — boys or girls — to win a Schuylkill League soccer championship as a third seed in the playoffs.
In a span of six days, the Eagles (15-6) beat Tri-Valley 7-1, Pottsville 2-0 and North Schuylkill 2-0 to capture the league title.
“We had a lot of ups and downs during the season,” Blue Mountain coach Matt Kenitzer said. “We had a couple of very difficult losses that brought us down quite a bit. We just pushed through them, enduring, persevering and fine-tuning a lot of the things that we were excelling at but had fallen off.
“We just kept pushing through. These girls just kept at it, kept at it, kept at it. And it was amazing to watch.”
Scheuer’s first goal came off a free kick at the 18:01 mark. After North Schuylkill was whistled for a foul, Scheuer blasted a shot from roughly 40 yards just over Spartans’ goalie Madelyn Moyer to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.
“I just tried to kick it hard and high,” Scheuer said. “It could deflect off the goalie, someone else could finish it. It was hard and high and it just ended up getting in that corner. It was a great shot.”
Scheuer’s second goal came off another set play, this time a corner kick from the right side. Freshman Lexi Waschko sent the ball into the middle where Scheuer was able to get a body on it and push it past goalkeeper Madelyn Moyer at the 30:45 mark.
Scheuer had Waschko each scored four goals in the Schuylkill League playoffs, giving them 16 and 19, respectively on the season.
“Lexi had a great ball to me right there,” Scheuer said. “Nice easy tap in with my shoulder. It was another great goal, great ball by Lexi, another great play.”
The Blue Mountain defense took it from there, holding the Spartans to four shots on goal and keeping freshman phenom Lilah Helwig off the scoreboard.
Helwig led the Schuylkill League in scoring with 40 goals and 24 assists during the regular season, then had three more goals in the Spartans’ league playoff wins over Williams Valley and Schuylkill Haven.
Blue Mountain’s defense held her to one shot on goal, surrounding her with 4-5 players every time she touched the ball in the offensive zone. Helwig had a pair of rushes in the second half only to see her shot carry high and wide of the net both times.
Kenitzer gave a lot of credit to his defense, with Kendall Koch, Sophia Spolski, Addyson Fishburn and Kiera Nunemacher playing in the back.
