THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605070127
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 23 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Sports
SOURCE: Vicki L. Friedman
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
Norfolk Academy's girls soccer team has been bruised by injuries, lineup changes and a schedule that included North Carolina's best teams.
Starter Erica Blachman tore her anterior cruciate ligament in the first game and is out for the season. That left Academy coach Kevin Sims to turn Lizzy Rice into a marking back. At forward last season, Rice was the Bulldogs' second-leading scorer with 15 goals and nine assists - a player, Sims says, with a blistering shot and good field sense.
``She had an incredible knack for making things happen as an attacker,'' he said.
Senior midfielder Carrie Evans is also hampered by a stress fracture.
``It's been a difficult season,'' Sims said. ``In a lot of regards, we haven't had the whole team together.''
But an area where Norfolk Academy hasn't struggled is the TCIS, and it looks like Sims will depart the school without a loss in the league. Sims is moving to Chattanooga, Tenn., this summer to be closer to family and his hometown, Atlanta. He will coach soccer there at the McCallie School, an all-boys high school.
Norfolk Academy is 144-0-1 in the TCIS since Sims took over the program 15 years ago. The lone tie was back in 1983 against Catholic, and ironically, Sims served as an official during the game. Sims recalls it being Sports Festival Day at Academy, with every team having a home game scheduled. Soccer was moved to earlier in the afternoon to accommodate some of the other games, and no official was available. By gentlemen's agreement, Sims took the field.
``I wasn't allowed to have any contact with the girls on my team,'' he said. ``And back then I had no assistants.''
The final score on penalty kicks: 2-2.
Norfolk Christian's Sonni Stommel scored three goals last week. The speedy Stommel has paced the Ambassadors since Martha Duffey went down with an ankle sprain several games ago.
Stommel tied last Friday's game with Catholic on a breakaway with five minutes left in regulation. With a minute left in the second overtime, Stommel struck again - her 10th goal of the season.
Cox pounded Maury last week, 8-1, but Commodores coach Bob Mayer will assure you that top-ranked Cox is not seven goals better than his fifth-ranked team. Maury gave up a couple of goals early on fluky plays, Mayer said, including a defender heading in her own ball for a goal, and was never able to rebound.
``We fell apart mentally and physically, more mentally,'' Mayer said.
Maury quickly regrouped to hand Great Bridge its second loss of the season on Saturday, 2-1.
Mayer has moved Katie Roman back to stopper from the midfield. Roman prefers stopper but previously had changed positions to give Maury another scoring threat. Amy Mayer and Shwante Snead lead the Commodores in scoring, but Snead also runs track and has missed a few games.
``Katie at midfield worked fine for a couple of gamees,'' Mayer said. ``But now we need more strength in the backfield. Katie's very vocal. She talks a lot back there, and she also helps our sweeper out.''
Last Friday night's Princess Anne/Kempsville game was a case of Rafal/Rafal versus Rafal. Jessica and Lauren Rafal play for Kempsville; their dad, Jerry, coaches Princess Anne.
``They wouldn't talk to me before the game,'' said Jerry Rafal. ``Luckily I knew their style.''
Lauren is Kempsville's leading scorer, and Jessica is one of three freshmen on the varsity squad.
``He marked me really tight; I couldn't do much,'' Lauren said. ``He knows how me and my sister play, and we know how he coaches.''
Neither Rafal managed to score against Dad's team, but Kempsville still won the game 3-1, and Jerry Rafal said he never secretly rooted for either of his daughters. ``I figured we needed the game more than Kempsville,'' he said.
Afterward, both girls gave their dad hugs. ``Nice game,'' Lauren told him.
Biff Andrews is back coaching the Churchland girls again after missing three games because of an exchange trip to Russia. In his absence, the Truckers went 3-0 under assistant Peggy Powers.
Andrews is tickled at how well his young team, with 16 freshmen and sophomores, has withstood the competition. The Truckers played what Andrews calls ``rock 'em, sock 'em soccer'' against Southeastern District champion Great Bridge, and came out with a 1-0 loss.
``Our kids just hang in there and play with guts,'' Andrews said.
Churchland's strength is defense, led by Kat Crandall, Dorothy Laskin and Kate Foley. ``We can stay with anybody,'' Andrews says. ``We can stop people from scoring; we just have trouble scoring ourselves.''
And with the Truckers carrying 24 on their roster, you wouldn't think Andrews would worry about depth. But should Churchland make the district final on May 16, he will be without five of his players who are going to Florida as part of the school's chorus.
Ironically, one of them is keeper Courtney Hundley, who missed her final basketball game during regionals because of a goodwill trip to Guyana. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by HUY NGUYEN
Norfolk Academy's Angela Hucles moves past Norfolk Christian's Sonni
Stommel.
by CNB