Youth/High School Soccer
Radnor breaks 1-1 deadlock to beat Lower Merion in overtime
Time and daylight were running out when Radnor girls soccer found a scrappy game-winner to beat Lower Merion on their home turf on Thursday night and improve to 8-2 on the season.
Maeve Mucksavage headed home the golden goal off a long throw with seconds ticking off on the first overtime period to lead Radnor to their fifth conference win of the season and keep pace with Strath Haven at the top of the league standings (5-1).
“It just comes down to our team’s ability to stay together through the game,” said Mucksavage, who beat Lower Merion goalkeeper Cate Cantu to the ball and nodded it in. “We never get down on each other, we never get down on ourselves even when things don’t go our way. We play until the last minute and that worked out for us today.”
Lower Merion had an early chance to open the scoring when Nieve Clifford played Harper Gust in but Sora McCrea was there to clear the ball before it crossed the line, one of several clutch interventions the sophomore center back made on the day. The Aces were doing a good job spreading the field and attacking through their star winger Dylan Steinberg but solid play from McCrea, center back partner Francesca Lucchesi and outside backs Reece Brown and Anna Reger mostly kept the dynamic Aces attack in check.
Radnor would find the opener when Ryan Ertel was able to keep an attack alive playing a ball in from the right flank off a clearance, get it back from a teammate and shoot a low liner that was saved by Cantu but cleaned up on the back post and put in with a tidy finish from Kayla Cormier.
Radnor looked like they take their 1-0 lead into halftime but a high shot from the left flank by Kendall Baker somehow snuck right in under the top left hand corner of the net to tie the game up 1-1.
“It was a little bit of a gut punch for us,” head coach Jake Solderitsch said. “This group, nothing seems to bother them at least not for too long so we knew coming into the second half we had a good chance. We felt like we had some chances to end it before the overtime and didn’t do it but luckily we got the winner.”
Radnor hosts Central Bucks East on Saturday afternoon in a battle of the top-ranked 4A and 3A teams in District 1 before returning to conference play at home against Garnet Valley on Thursday evening. Lower Merion visits Perkiomen Valley on Saturday and then returns to conference play at Conestoga on Thursday night.
