Girls' soccer: Manheim Township blanks Annville-Cleona in L-L opener, 3-0

MILLERSVILLE >> Lisa Schuyler knew what her Annville-Cleona girls' soccer team was getting into on Saturday afternoon.

Matched up against a much larger foe in the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs, Schuyler also knew to withstand any of Manheim Township's punches, it would fall on the shoulders of her goalkeeper Anna Soliday.

Though the 3-0 result in favor of Township wasn't the score Schuyler wanted to see,Soliday was outstanding stopping 24 of the 27 shots directed at her.

There's always a silver-lining.

"Their school is huge, they have a very good program, a program that's been developed for many years and we knew coming into this it wouldn't be easy or a walk in the park. We had to come out and fight our way through, which I thought we did," Schuyler said.

Township scored all three goals in the first half, striking first a little over seven minutes into the contest on an Alison Heckman goal. Heckman later assisted on the third Blue Strikes tally, on a perfectly played corner kick that found the foot of Aubrey Suydam with seven minutes remaining before the half.

Again,the three scores didn't tell the full story of Soliday's performance in net.

"Anna is great. She's young and very, very smart," Schuyler said. "For a young goalie, she is strong and she will demand things on the field. That was big for us today, she took control through the back and she knew if we had a fighting chance that she needed to be the one that controlled, and she did. She had a heck of a game."

Annville-Cleona didn't even get a shot off until midway through the second half and finished with just one.

The Blue Streaks controlled possession for the duration of the first half, firing 17 attempts at Soliday, including the beautiful Heckman-Suydam connection on the corner.

"We're pretty adept on those corners," Manheim Township head coach Terry Law said. "We have a couple of kids that finish well on those and they're getting into a rhythm now, you can tell, look at anyone who is still playing they're in a rhythm right now and that's where we are."

Township will face Elizabethtown in Tuesday's semifinals at Manheim Central at 5:30. Annville-Cleona will begin prep work for the upcoming District 3-AA tournament, which begins on the 26th.

"If we can play up against Township the way we played today in our district run, we need to continue it and realize that it's not going to be easy. But playing like we did today is going to get us far in districts," Schuyler said.

Manheim Township 3, Annville-Cleona 0

Annville-Cleona00—0Manheim Township30—3

First half — MT: Alison Heckman, Madison Kohl, Aubrey Suydam

Second half — None

Assists — MT: Hannah Wood, Suydam, Heckman

Shots on goal — Manheim Township 27, Annville-Cleona 1;

Corners — Manheim Township 5, Annville-Cleona 0;

Saves — AC: Anna Soliday (24 saves), MT: Katy Hollinger (0 saves)