Nakrasius, Garnet Valley show that speed thrills
LEHMAN TWP. >> The operative term when a District One powerhouse ventures into the PIAA hinterlands is “speed”. The pace at which the game is played elsewhere in the states as opposed to in its southeastern hotbed is light years different.
For Garnet Valley’s Kara Nakrasius, that means one thing. Or rather, one step.
“It’s just the first step off of (the draw),” the senior midfielder said. “We work on it in practice, and it just shows in the game.”
Nakrasius and company dominated on draws, powering District One third seed Garnet Valley to a 23-7 win over District 2 champion Wyoming Seminary in the first round of the PIAA tournament Wednesday at Lake-Lehman High School’s Edward Edwards Stadium.
The defending state champion Jaguars collected 24 of the 31 draws on the night, Nakrasius personally gobbling up eight. That possession led to an 11-5 lead at halftime and the first 10 goals of the second half to turn a surprisingly close affair into a laugher.
The chemistry between Nakrasius, Emily Mathewson and Michelle Kocinski on draws paid off time and again.
“Me, Em and Michelle have been playing midfield for each other for like 15 years, and we just really understand where the ball is going to go,” Nakrasius said. “They help me 100 percent and they give me a nod or they’ll be like, ‘hey, I’ll block this girl; you get it.’”
They did plenty with the ball as well. Mathewson scored six times, including four straight to balloon the lead to 8-1 early in the first half, and added two assists. Kamyrn McNeal and Riley Delaney added three goals each, McNeal augmenting her total with two assists. Nakrasius tallied twice, along with Koscinski, Camryn McNeal and Caroline Shaefer.
Pro tip: Cover Emily Mathewson. She has 958 career goals (maybe?). 6-1 GV pic.twitter.com/DIbqVTG4bZ
— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) June 1, 2016
Nonetheless, the Jags found themselves trailing 90 seconds in thanks to Wyoming Seminary’s Katherine Romanowski, who along with Christina Kilyanek scored twice each in the first half. The five goals allowed in the first half, coach Jenny Purvis made known in no uncertain terms, were too many, a “frustrating” amount in the words of defender Rachel Warden.
“We thought that we could take a little bit more risks with this team,” Warden said. “Our defense is really close, and we always are really able to work well with each other, so we communicated a lot on sending doubles or if one of our defenders went out to pressure of go for an interception, we were there to have their backs.”
The second-half response was ruthless. McNeal set the pace after just 13 seconds, thanks to a draw control by Nakrasius. By the time Mathewson scored her sixth with 12:21 left and sophomore Abby Kalish added a marker with 11 minutes to play and the dogs called off, the lead stood at 21-5.
“We definitely know we needed to pick it back up again, so we definitely got ourselves back together and working more towards the fundamentals and not making those little mistakes and really capitalize on what we needed to do,” Nakrasius said.
