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T’Birds fall to Bears, 3-0, on road

OBSERVER Photo by Jay Young Chautauqua Lake’s Calla Zarpentine makes a play on the ball during Thursday’s Central Division soccer game.

FREWSBURG — Thursday night’s 3-0 Central Division win over Chautauqua Lake (6-3-1, 6-3-1) proved what everyone already knew — Frewsburg girls soccer has some of the best long-range scorers in Western New York.

Alex Hultberg and Samantha Annis put the Bears (13-0, 10-0) on the board in the opening half with outside shots, while Tyra Clark added an exclamation point on the victory following a free kick with five minutes to play.

Stepping up to the ball from 35 yards out on the right side, Clark let go an absolute screamer that found its way into the far corner, past the hands of a diving Hailey Roush.

That just about sums up this season for Frewsburg, and its opponents.

“Things like that, how do you stop that? Unless you have a girl who can jump six feet in the air,” Chautauqua Lake coach Cole Gleason said. “That shot down there, I told (Roush) you really can’t do much about that.”

OBSERVER Photo by Jay Young From the left, Frewsburg’s Alex Hultberg and Chautauqua Lake’s Erma Wolcott battle for possession of the ball during Thursday’s Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Athletic Association Central Division soccer game.

Between the long legs of Clark, Annis, Hultberg, Raena Bird and Kaydan Bush, opponents have been forced to pick their poison against the Bears.

“We knew we were going up against a good soccer team today, but, we feel if we do what we do then we should be in pretty good shape,” Frewsburg head coach Scott Stone said. “That (free kick) was an absolute rocket. I don’t know any keeper in the area, boy or girl, that is going to stop a shot like that. Tyra, she is a real strong player and I wouldn’t want to stand in front of the ball when she lines up like that, that is for sure.”

Both first-half goals told a similar story to Clark’s long-range blast. Frewsburg nearly got on the board first in the 14th minute when Ashlyn Samuelson was able to head a ball in close to Hultberg, but that shot deflected off a defender.

Two minutes later, Annis sprung Hultberg on a rush down the right side, where the sophomore star fired home her team-leading 13th goal of the year.

With 14 minutes remaining in the first 40, Annis won another battle in the open field after taking in a pass by Makenna McBride. That play was finished off with a shot from the left side that was snuck in off the near post despite a save attempt by Roush, who ended the game with 17 stops.

“The first two goals — Sam Annis,” Stone said. “Sam Annis made a hustle play on the first one to get the ball to Alex, and Alex just absolutely smashed that ball top corner. There is not a keeper that can save that. But it all started with the hustle play from Sam. Then the second goal was a hustle play from Sam. Our forwards just don’t stop coming after you, and when they do that they create turnovers, and players like Alex put those balls in the top of the net.”

Frewsburg will take its perfect record on the road for a 6:30 p.m. start on Saturday against non-league Falconer/Cassadaga Valley, which sits at 5-8 on the year.

The Bears expect to play their first postseason game at Strider Field on Monday, due to the smaller size of Frewsburg’s available field with lights.

Chances are both teams will see each other again in the playoffs.

“I anticipate seeing them in the playoffs moving forward,” Gleason said. “We just have to come out aggressive against them from the start and we just didn’t come out. They were beating us to balls at the beginning and when they get an opportunity they take advantage of it. Lessening those opportunities for them is really the goal to get a win against them. We knew they had one girl (Alex Hultberg), I knew that she could shoot really far and you have to be able to step up on girls like that because they can make a play at half field, basically. We tried marking Hultberg the first game and that seemed to work, but we didn’t try that today because I wanted to try a different formation and see if that worked or not.”

Cadence Rodgers made 12 saves for Frewsburg.

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