High School Girls Soccer (Preseason):
Cherry Hill East Tops West Deptford 2 to 1

Friday, September 4, 1998

By Forrest Robleto
SJSports Staff Writer

Cherry Hill East had a problem with their bus and arrived late to the game. They didn't get a chance to touch the ball before the game and faced an explosive start from West Deptford. East was able to weather the early onslaught and in a toe to toe match-up found themselves two opportunities to West Deptford's one.

At the 35:24 minute of the first half, West Deptford opened the scoring with a tally by Rachael Greenwald from Jocelyn Page. Greenwald is a returning centerman fielder. She was a first team all conference player last year as a sophomore. Cherry Hill evened the score at 15:10 when Christy Madden passed the ball to Marissa Kravitz at about 20 yards. Kravitz carried it to about the 10 and buried it to the left of a helpless Heather Rakes.

The first half ended 1-1 and when the second half started, the West Deptford Eagles stormed out again but this time the storm didn't last to long. After things settled down, Kravitz got her second goal of the day on a nice feed from Laura Pursell at the 15:29 minute mark. At about the 13 minute mark, Carolyn Snyder made a beautiful diving stop on what otherwise would have been a sure goal to the lower left corner of the net.

Coach John Cobb of the West Deptford Eagles, referring to this game and an earlier scrimmage against Cumberland said, "... we've come out in both scrimmages and really stormed things early. We are not playing that many kids right now, so I think that just because we have three teams and got some injuries. I think our fitness hurt us a little bit in the first part of that second half because we are only seven days into the season."

Andrea Giuliani has a foot injury. They hope to have her back in about three weeks. Giuliani is one of four three year starters on the team. The others are Rachel Greenwald who scored the West Deptford goal and Nicole Nicolosi and Lindsey Wadkins.

Coach Lee Troutman also bemoaned the missing players Stephanie Singer, a starter and Stacy Zallie. This was the first scrimmage for Cherry Hill East, but it appears the heavy conditioning drills coach Troutman is so fond of paid early dividends, as the Cougars stayed even with the fast start of the Eagles and were still strong as the Eagles started to flag.

Photos by Forrest Robleto