‘I couldn’t have been happier with my girls:’ Lady Zs’ season ends with loss to Manchester in sectional semis

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

ARGOS — Rochester girls soccer coach Chantal Rensberger changed strategies from her team’s first meeting against Manchester when they played again in a Class 1A, Sectional 36 semifinal at Argos’ Eugene Snyder Field Oct. 10.

The game might have been more competitive, but the Lady Zs lost 6-0. Ava Sautter had three goals, and Hanna Stout, Campbell Bolinger and Raimi Vawter had one goal each.

Manchester led 3-0 at halftime, and they bagged three more goals in the first 6:45 of the second half.

Rochester lost 9-0 at home in their Three Rivers Conference meeting on Sept. 23.

In this game, Rochester put senior Audrey Wagner, who scored a hat trick in a 5-0 win over Oregon-Davis two days earlier, as a sweeper on defense. That is more similar to the role Wagner played in her career during her first three years.

“Defensive strategy was everybody play back essentially,” Rensberger said. “I moved Audrey Wagner – obviously we talked about her offensive ability (Tuesday) night – and I brought her back to sweeper because she is the captain, she is the leader, and she does know how to play that position very well. I was not worried about scoring goals this game. I was more worried about let’s play defense, let’s protect our goalie, and let’s not get mercy ruled.

“Manchester has a great team. They’re strong, all 20 of their players. So I was trying to keep it, so the girls could play the full 80, and they did a great job. You take away those three goals in the second half where we kind of fell apart for 10 minutes, that’s a 3-0 game against a team that we lost 9-0 against in the regular season. I believe even their coach thought that’s improvement from the game we played to now.”

Coach Rensberger also wanted sophomore midfielder Bria Rensberger to be more defensive minded.

“I really liked what she did in the back half of the field,” coach Rensberger said. “She showed a lot more aggression after I had a good one-on-one talk with her and use her foot skill a little bit more.”

Coach Rensberger said the team in general played with more aggression than in the Oregon-Davis game.

“I did tell them it doesn’t make a difference if you win or lose,” coach Rensberger said. “You’ve got to go out and show who you are. And I do truly feel like for 50 minutes of that game, or maybe even more, like, 65 minutes of that game, we held them. We were with them the entire game. It’s just you have that 15-minute break-apart, and they scored those goals. … The last 32 minutes of the game, they didn't score anything, and that’s because they played hard.”

Coach Rensberger also praised freshman Gretchen Gardner and senior Adalynn Samuels. Most players had to play every minute of every game without a breather.

Typically, coach Rensberger could only make one substitute.

“We’ve had 12 girls all season long,” coach Rensberger said. “I lost Ruth Love to a concussion, who was a defender I was developing. So to come out and get a first-game win and lose 6-0 against a conference rival who literally murdered us in the regular season, I couldn’t have been happier with my girls.”

Wagner, Samuels and Skyla Mitchell played their final prep soccer games.