KENMORE — There is no such thing as a meaningless or boring Kenmore
West-Grand Island girls soccer game.
Jenna Raepple collected three points as Grand Island edged the Blue Devils 3-2
in Niagara Frontier League action Wednesday afternoon at the Kenmore West
Athletic Complex.
This is the second go-around this season between the two clubs, with Grand
Island scoring a 2-1 victory at their field last month. This win moves the
Vikings one step closer to the league title.
A match up of two of the top-10 ranked large schools in Western New York, the
No.1 Vikings (8-0-1 in NFL, 10-0-1) and No. 5 Blue Devils (8-2 in NFL, 10-2
overall), showed why they are two of the premier programs in the region.
“We knew it was going to be a physical game coming in because both teams
wanted it just as much,” said Vikings coach Dave Bowman. “My girls wanted
to win. They wanted to knock us off. You know it’s going to be a good game
when they come in 10-1 and we come in 9-0-1.”
Grand Island took the 1-0 lead just under nine minutes into the game when
senior Jeannie Taylor took a pass from Raepple and lofted the ball over the
reach of a leaping Blue Devil keeper Taylor Smith.
Not long after that first goal the Blue Devils responded with a stretch of a
strong offensive attack as they took advantage of some communication break
downs between the Viking mid fielders and defenders.
Though they repeatedly tested Viking goalie Stephanie Senn, she held strong
and didn’t allow the ball to pass during that flurry of chances.
“Steph played great. The saves she made kept us in this game and she did
well,” Raepple said.
Twenty minutes after Jeannine Taylor scored on the feed from Raepple she
returned the favor, as she dished the ball to Raepple who gave Grand Island a
2-0 lead they would take into half time.
The Blue Devils held true to their reputation this season of being a strong
second half team as they maintained pressure on Senn and with 26:05 left in
the game, Lexi Panepinto cut the deficit in half when she got the Blue Devils
on the board.
Amanda Cinelli, who scored what turned out to be the game-winner, extended the
Viking lead to 3-1 with 5:26 left to play. But that wasn’t the last of the
scoring.
Lexi Panepinto, with less than a minute to play, took control of the ball near
the Vikings net to Senn’s right. She danced around, fought through several
Viking defenders, pushed toward the net and set up Maddy Barker who scored
with 15 seconds left in the game.
“They’ve got a heck of a lot of talent over there,” Bowman said. “The
two Panepinto sisters are awesome. We gave them way too much space in the
first half and we knew they were going to eventually make us pay and Lexi did.
Her hard work paid off for them a couple times.”
Evenly matched and hard fought, this game lived up to its billing as the
marquee match up in girls soccer, Ken West coach Jen Gilham said.
“Grand Island is a great rival,” Gilham said. “It’s a great team and
we respect them and I think we always give them a good game as they always
give us a good game. But now it’s sectionals. We’re focusing on seeding
points. We’re focusing on preparing for sectionals. So I would take this
game of making mistakes here, and learning from them, to prepare for
sectionals.”