By Ted Waddell
HANCOCK — September 24, 2004 – Despite the best efforts of 11th grader Carri Martinez, also known as The Family School’s “Number One Fan,” the Lady Falcons were defeated 2-0 by the visiting Tri-Valley Lady Bears in Wednesday afternoon’s non-league soccer match.
Martinez cheered on her team from the sidelines while holding up a hand-lettered sign that read “Let’s Go Falcons,” the school’s trademark battle cry in sports competition.
T-V improved its record to 4-2 on the season, while The Family School fell to 1-4.
For the Lady Bears, the shutout win fulfilled one of the team’s goals for the 2004 soccer season: to record at least three shutouts for the year.
“We’ve already made one our goals for 2004,” said Mary Feusner, veteran T-V girls’ soccer coach.
Rebecca Pearston scored for the Lady Bears on an assist by Julie Shovlin just two minutes into the contest.
At the 32:00 mark of the second half, Shovlin scored on an assist by Cecelia Pompeii.
Katherine Ryman anchored the goal for The Family School, while Kaylie Ackerley guarded the goal cage for the Lady Bears. Ryman made 14 saves and Ackerley was credited with two saves.
“I was very pleased,” Family School Coach Joe Lichty said. “We’ve made a lot of improvements in the last couple of days… our defense tried something new and it worked pretty well.”
Feusner was impressed with how her booters were able to score within the first two minutes of the game.
“We played our attack early in the game, but didn’t punch another one in until late in the second half when we got a security goal,” she said.