BY JEFF FALK

MYERSTOWN – While Ryelle Shuey is a great player, the Elco girls are far from a one-person soccer team. Shuey enjoys a great majority of her success within the team concept, and the Raiders have assembled a talented supporting cast around her.

And that’s more than just a lot of hot air.

On a windy night at Elco Stadium, three different players not named ‘Shuey’ found the back of the net, as the Raiders edged Hershey 3-2 in an opening-round game in the District Three Class AAA playoffs. After Elco found itself in a 2-1 hole at the break, the Raiders came out and netted two quick goals early in the second half.

Four of the five goals scored in the contest were with the wind – a stiff and consistent breeze out of the south, south-east.

The triumph lifted fifth-seeded Elco to 17-2-1 on the season and into Thursday’s quarterfinal round opposite fourth-seeded Lower Dauphin, a 2-1 winner over Palmyra, at a site and time to be determined. Hershey, the 12th seed, concluded its campaign at 9-9-1.

“I think Rye can push herself, and she makes things harder by pressing and trying to make things happen, instead of just letting the game come to her,” said Elco head coach Derek Fulk. “She’s a competitor. She loves to play soccer. She was on the field 80 minutes tonight.

“She’s (Tanisha Grewal) been great all year,” continued Fulk. “Rye gets a lot of the accolades, but we’ve got a good cast around her. She (Grewal) does her thing. She’s a great player. She makes great decisions.”

“Ryelle is a really good player,” said Grewal, who netted the game-winner for Elco,with 35:34 left to play. “She’s a great play-maker. We play off her, and she plays off us.”

Down 2-1, the Raiders tied it on an unassisted Jordan Rosengrant goal 2:24 into the second half. Off a corner kick she took, Rosengrant curled a right-footer into the near side of the Trojan net.

Then 2:02 later, Grewal struck for the go-ahead goal, off another corner kick taken by Rosengrant, only this one was more extended in its pressure on the Hershey net. From the top of the box, the ball was played to the Trojan right post, where Grewal hustled on to it and touched it home.

It was Grewal’s 12th goal of the season.

Though plenty of time remained in the match, the Raiders did not yield a dangerous chance the rest of the way.

“It really happened so fast,” said Grewal. “I saw the ball. I saw the goalie. And I hit it as fast as I could. I tried to save it (from going out of bounds).

“Coming into the second half, we knew we could come back and we knew we had the wind,” added Grewal. “It was our last home game of the season. We wanted to play for the seniors. We know what we can accomplish.”

“It was really big,” said Fulk of his side’s quick scores. “At halftime, I thought we were right in the game. Now we have the wind. Now we have the advantage.”

Elco scored the only goal of the game into the wind, and it came 9:07 into the contest, and it gave it a 1-0 edge. And it was Grewal who set up the play.

On a counter-attack from the left, the ball was played to Grewal deep into the Hershey zone. Grewal served a pass into the goal mouth, and teammate Natalie Swingholm used her right foot to volley it home.

For Swingholm, the goal represented her 16th of the year.

“It’s always tough,” said Fulk of the intensity of district playoff games. “You never know what you’re going to get. I thought our kids would come out and play. We were moving the ball. We were playing soccer.

“It’s been a theme for us, that we’ve struggled in our first district game,” continued Fulk. “I thought we played well tonight at times. There’s some things we need to clean up. We knew if we didn’t win, it’s (the season) over. With us being the smallest (Class) AAA school, every game is going to be a battle.”

“We knew if we had one really bad break it could cost us,” said Grewal. “Both of those (the Trojans’) goals were carried by the wind. With the wind, when a ball is normally going out, it stays in. And when it normally is going to stay in, it goes out. You’ve just got to be ready for it to go any way.”

Hershey definitely benefited from the wind on its two goals, which came 6:34 apart, late in the first half.

The Trojans tied the score at one when Lauren Epler – not unlike Rosengrant – curled a corner kick into the Raider net from the left side. Hershey assumed a 2-1 edge off a corner kick from the opposite side of the field, as McKenna Lewis’ boot found the right foot of teammate Cassie Zugay in the goal mouth.

“It was brutal tonight,” said Fulk of the wind. “It was definitely an advantage when you had it at your back, and it definitely did impact the game. I thought we played well for the first 30 minutes of the first half, and then we gave up a goal. When we’re aggressive and going forward, we have a much better approach.

“Into the wind, you’ve got to keep the ball on the ground,” Fulk added. “It’s very difficult. I think it puts us under pressure by not playing soccer. With the goals they (the Trojans) got, it changed the complexion of the game. It’s just so hard to play into the wind.”

On the final stat sheet, Elco enjoyed a 12-5 advantage in shots on goal. The Raiders took ten corner kicks compared to the Trojans’ three.

“I thought our kids played hard,” said Fulk. “I thought our defense played well. The first round of districts is always tough.

“The mentality is ‘One game at a time,'” added Fulk. “I’d love to see us make a run. I don’t know if it was said that we want to win a district championship or go to states. It’s win and advance. I’ll try to find out what Lower Dauphin has and see what we can do.”

“We’re going to get a scouting report on Lower Dauphin,” said Grewal. “We’re going to play our best game. I think our talent will take us. We know what we can do. I think sometimes people underestimate us because we’re a small school.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017 Elco Girls’ Soccer Results

Date	Teams	Score
9/01 12:00 pm	Tulpehocken at Elco	0 10
9/02 10:00 am	Palmyra Elco at Donegal
9/02 10:00 am	Conrad Weiser at Elco	2 5
9/07 7:00 pm	Lancaster Catholic at Elco	0 1
9/08 4:00 pm	Elco at Lebanon Catholic	12 1
9/09 7:00 pm	Elco at Cedar Crest	2 1
9/12 7:00 pm	Elco at Lancaster Mennonite	1 0
9/14 7:00 pm	Donegal at Elco	0 4
9/16 7:00 pm	Elco at Northern Lebanon	7 1
9/19 4:00 pm	Elco at Pequea Valley	5 0
9/21 7:00 pm	Annville-Cleona at Elco	0 3
9/25 4:00 pm	Middletown at Elco	0 4
9/27 4:00 pm	Elco at Lancaster Catholic	3 0
9/29 4:00 pm	Lebanon Catholic at Elco	1 12
10/02 7:00 pm	Lancaster Mennonite at Elco	0 3
10/04 7:00 pm	Elco at Donegal	1 1
10/06 4:00 pm	Northern Lebanon at Elco	0 9
10/09 7:00 pm	Pequea Valley at Elco	2 1
10/11 4:00 pm	Elco at Annville-Cleona	8 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PIAA District Three

 Class AAA Power Rankings

 

AAA	School	W	L	T	Rating	TWP	OWP	TWPW	OWPW	TWPL	OWPL
1	Fleetwood	17-	0-	0	0.811795	1.000000	0.581766	17.9	160.8	0.0	115.6
2	East Pennsboro	17-	0-	0	0.776340	1.000000	0.502978	17.5	152.0	0.0	150.2
3	Northern York	14-	3-	1	0.735016	0.867568	0.573009	16.1	181.3	2.5	135.1
4	Lower Dauphin	11-	6-	0	0.714710	0.754190	0.666456	13.5	210.6	4.4	105.4
5	Eastern Lebanon County	16-	1-	1	0.686440	0.907186	0.416639	15.2	125.2	1.6	175.3
6	Lampeter Strasburg	12-	5-	0	0.681899	0.779661	0.562413	13.8	160.9	3.9	125.2
7	Donegal	14-	1-	3	0.678399	0.853293	0.464640	14.3	140.6	2.5	162.0
8	Susquehannock	13-	3-	0	0.672255	0.841772	0.465068	13.3	123.2	2.5	141.7
9	Northeastern	9-	5-	4	0.661827	0.706522	0.607201	13.0	187.2	5.4	121.1
10	Manheim Central	11-	6-	0	0.660247	0.731844	0.572740	13.1	165.4	4.8	123.4
11	Conrad Weiser	10-	6-	1	0.633615	0.649390	0.614335	10.7	177.9	5.8	111.7
12	Hershey	9-	8-	1	0.629082	0.630890	0.626873	12.1	200.9	7.1	119.6
13	Palmyra	9-	7-	2	0.628347	0.648936	0.603182	12.2	191.5	6.6	126.0
14	Bishop McDevitt	10-	4-	3	0.616187	0.685976	0.530891	11.3	161.6	5.2	142.8
15	Twin Valley	10-	8-	0	0.615023	0.635294	0.590246	10.8	182.2	6.2	126.5
16	Cocalico	8-	7-	2	0.599889	0.631579	0.561157	10.8	162.0	6.3	126.7
17	James Buchanan	10-	8-	0	0.596775	0.611111	0.579253	11.0	179.8	7.0	130.6
18	Gettysburg	10-	6-	0	0.583374	0.654321	0.496660	10.6	126.4	5.6	128.1
19	Berks Catholic	11-	7-	0	0.578439	0.617647	0.530519	10.5	156.5	6.5	138.5
20	Dover	10-	6-	0	0.568796	0.653846	0.464847	10.2	118.4	5.4	136.3
21	Red Land	6-	12-	0	0.546049	0.443038	0.671952	7.0	218.3	8.8	106.6
22	Spring Grove	6-	10-	2	0.542850	0.506024	0.587860	8.4	179.7	8.2	126.0
23	Susquehanna Township	9-	7-	1	0.523077	0.563187	0.474054	10.3	141.6	8.0	157.1
24	Garden Spot	6-	11-	0	0.518963	0.449704	0.603613	7.6	177.1	9.3	116.3
25	Solanco	6-	11-	1	0.487692	0.433333	0.554130	7.2	168.4	9.4	135.5
26	York Suburban	8-	9-	1	0.477770	0.500000	0.450600	8.4	131.4	8.4	160.2
27	Greencastle Antrim	5-	12-	1	0.470573	0.357988	0.608177	6.1	191.2	10.9	123.2
28	West York	5-	11-	0	0.429845	0.345070	0.533459	4.9	141.9	9.3	124.1
29	Big Spring	5-	11-	0	0.417983	0.348684	0.502680	5.3	140.7	9.9	139.2
30	West Perry	5-	13-	0	0.409710	0.286458	0.560350	5.5	172.7	13.7	135.5
31	Kennard Dale	4-	12-	1	0.374589	0.258929	0.515952	4.4	140.7	12.5	132.0
32	Shippensburg	1-	15-	2	0.352330	0.144578	0.606248	2.4	191.2	14.2	124.2
33	Milton Hershey	1-	17-	0	0.295456	0.070652	0.570216	1.3	171.4	17.1	129.2