Rivals Conrad Weiser and Fleetwood battle to a scoreless draw

ROBESONIA>> A scoreless draw last season was the difference-maker between Fleetwood capturing the Berks League Section 2 title or falling into a three-way tie for the crown. One of those teams the Tigers would have had to share a section title with, sans that tie game, was Conrad Weiser.

Fast forward a sports calendar season and what do we get when the two Berks League rivals renew acquaintances on the pitch?

Hello. A scoreless draw.

Neither the Scouts not the Tigers could find the net Thursday night, with the match ending in a double-overtime 0-0 draw in their first meeting of the 2015 campaign.

Last season, Fleetwood finished 7-2-1 in Berks 2 (thanks to a 0-0 match with Twin Valley), one-half game ahead of Conrad Weiser and Schuylkill Valley, which both finished 7-3.

As we cross into the second half (gulp) of the regular season this year, Thursday’s result left Fleetwood at 3-0-1 (7-0-2 overall) in Berks 2 and Weiser at 2-1-1 (4-4-1). Both are trailing front-running Schuylkill Valley, which is off to a 4-0 league start.

“We’ve been division rivals, butting heads now for seven, eight years, ever since we got up here,” Fleetwood head coach Mike Boyer said. “I think it’s always a competitive game when we come here.”

Thursday night’s match at Weiser was a physical one, dominated during stretches by Fleetwood, which ended up out-cornering the host Scouts prohibitively, at 9-2. But the Tigers could not capitalize on their good fortune, thanks largely to strong set-piece defense in the box from the Scouts.

“We work on defending corners, we work a lot on it,” veteran Weiser head coach Doug Miller said. “I mean, that’s one of the things we’ve gotten better at. We gave a couple up in the preseason. If we had gotten a couple of chances offensively, we probably could have put one in.”

Fleetwood outshot Weiser 6-2 for the full 100 minutes.

The match was not devoid of chances. Fleetwood held the upper hand in quantity and quality, but all six of Weiser goalie Vanessa Baker’s saves were right at her. The Tigers did not threaten from the sense of making Baker move around in the box and work to record them.

“We just didn’t execute at all in our offensive third,” Boyer said. “We’ve been scoring a lot of goals this year. We’d get  in the offensive third and it seems like we panicked with the last pass or the shot. We did not have a good shot on goal tonight. Their goalie didn’t even have to move. We just didn’t do that well tonight.”

In the two 10-minute extra sessions, Weiser was held without a shot on target. The best chance Fleetwood garnered was a ball that popped up in the air, inside the box, early in the second OT that Baker was able to snare and clear away, without a shot being recorded.

 

Fleetwood – 0  0  0  0 — 0

Conrad Weiser — 0  0  0  0 — 0

 

Shots on goal

CW, 2; F, 6

Corners

CW, 2; F, 9

Saves

CW (Vanessa Baker) 6; F, (Jenna Hawkins) 2