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"It's awesome," Whitesboro's star striker Dana gentile said afterward. "We knew this would be our year."
Gentile, her school's career scoring leader, did her part, but it was Whitesboro's defense that set the tone in the rubber game between the evenly matched Class A squads. Whitesboro
(18-2), down from Class AA for the first time, used inspired play by Lindsay Tolpa against the Red Devils' dangerous Danielle Smith, to key the shutout.
Smith was hobbled by an ankle sprain sustained in her previous match, but she still had enough speed and grit to weave through defenders on many occasions to set up scoring chances, especially in the first half. But Tolpa rarely allowed Smith to have the best look and her teammates were up to the task of limiting the quality of shots the other Red Devils took.
And when VVS did get a great chance, like in the first minute of play on a corner kick, the shot always seemed to go wide or Whitesboro keeper Kate Blais was in the right spot to make the save.
"We had a tough time controlling the middle," VVS midfielder Maria Macrina said. "They had the through balls and good passing."
That helped set up some great chances in the first half but VVS goalie Hannah Kallet was also up to the task and it stayed 0-0 after 40 minutes.
The trouble was VVS needed to score with the strong wind at its back. Battling it in the second, along with a deeper Whitesboro team, made scoring even tougher.
Pressure mounted when Sarah Zabek's corner kick in the 46th minute was misplayed by Kallet. The rare mistake from one of the area's top goalies, led to the match's first goal as the ball trickled off her hands and just over the line.
There was no chance for her on the next goal. Gentile did the honors in the 53rd minute. VVS defenders had her pinned in the middle but she somehow slipped loose enough to fire a hard shot from 20 yards to the right post.
Smith made a great run minutes later and sent a nice cross to Lindsay Dombrowski but the wing's volley went wide and it was VVS' last good chance.
Alyssa Upson added the last goal in the 76th minute by volleying in a corner kick the VVS defense sent out of the box.
It wasn't that VVS played poorly at Proctor's new stadium. Devon Croll, Amy Dixon and Katie Wilber did solid work all day to contain Gentile and Ashley Kolano, among others. It's just that when the Red Devils did get shots they weren't overly dangerous and Whitesboro, with fresh legs subbing in all afternoon, was able to wear them down while taking advantage of its breaks.
"We were just pumped up," Tolpa said. "And after the last game we wanted revenge."
"A lot had to do with the wind," Brown said of his team's victory. "We played well enough in the first half to keep them out and kept putting pressure on in the second."
That ended state-ranked VVS' (17-3) season.
"We just couldn't buy a goal," VVS coach Scott Sutherland lamented.
And that was one of Whitesboro's goals. Now Brown's team has a date in the Class A final against the CBA-Homer winner at Cortland State on Friday.
