The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

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November 7, 2009

Charleston Catholic shuts out Grafton

By Michelle James

A quick score off the foot of sophomore Rachel Silverman set the pace early for Friday’s state girls soccer tournament Class AA/A semifinal match-up between Charleston Catholic and Grafton, as the Fighting Irish went on to a 7-0 victory.

“Scoring as quickly as we did obviously was one of the things we talked about,” Charleston Catholic coach Kevin Nelson said. “If we can establish a presence early, then it’s going to make it more difficult for them to get into the game.”

With the victory, Charleston Catholic, the defending state champion, moved to 19-1-4 on the season and into today’s 11 a.m. championship game against Weir.

Scoring opportunities were few and far between for Grafton as it had just three shots on goal compared to 13 for Catholic.

Goals from Silverman, sophomore forward Emily Blake, junior forward Amanda Johns and junior midfielder Victoria Thomas combined for Catholic’s 4-0 halftime lead.

Silverman, Blake and Johns scored again in the second half, with Johns’ goal being the last of the game with 12:53 left to play.

“Charleston Catholic is a quality team, well coached and a lot of skill,” Grafton coach Lorraine Isner said, adding Nelson’s plan to keep her team off balance was a success. “It was a matter of us staying composed and maintaining our spacing and maintaining our game, and they took us out of it.

“They played an awesome game,” she continued. “We knew coming in it was going to be a challenge for us.”

It was the first trip to the state tournament for Grafton, whose program is just in its fourth year.

Senior keeper Alyssa Muller said she was proud of her team’s efforts.

“For the first time coming to the states, we did pretty good,” she said. “Four years of a soccer team at Grafton High School and coming to states, I think is an amazing thing.”

Isner echoed Muller and said the trip to states is something her team plans to repeat.

“We know what we need to do and our goal for next season is going to be a return trip to the states and to put in another quality season together,” she said.

Charleston Catholic is not yet ready to look to next year, however, as it will take on the Weir for the state title.

Prior to the start of the Weir-PikeView semifinal, Nelson said he would be pleased to play either team in today’s final, but said he hoped his team would get a shot at the Red Riders.

“No disrespect to PikeView, but I’d like to play Weir because they’re one of the teams we tied (during the regular season),” he said. “It’s probably a cardinal coaching sin to actually tell you the truth in situations like this, but I think we’d like another shot at Weir.”

Charleston Catholic is the state’s No. 1-ranked team and is ranked No. 15 in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Region 4 poll.

— E-mail: mjames@

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