LaRosa sparks Lady Eagles
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By Matt Michelone
For the Mirror
Tyrone senior midfielder Chloe LaRosa has had to make up for lost time this year after missing out on playing for much of last season.
"Chloe lost half her junior year and missed the playoffs last year," Tyrone coach Mike Sparacino said. "There's not a whole lot that's going to stop her from trying to get to where she wants to go."
LaRosa has spent a lot of time putting the ball in the back of the net during her final campaign -- having scored almost 40 goals this season -- and Wednesday night she made quite an entry into her postseason journal.
She went on to score two more goals -- including the game winner -- as the No. 4 seed Lady Eagles held on against No. 5 Forest Hills, 3-2, in the District 5-6 Class 2A girls soccer quarterfinals at Mansion Park.
"The team really pushed me to be better," LaRosa said. "If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have been here. Being able to play with them my last season is awesome and to be this far is amazing."
The Lady Eagles took early control, getting a goal just five minutes in from Briley Campbell on a feed from Eliza Vance to take a 1-0 lead. That was later followed by LaRosa's first tally of the night from Avalyn Moore to go up 2-0.
"If you looked at the rankings, and their win-loss record, they were even with us," Sparacino said. "Looking at the games that they had played against common opponents, they were all pretty tough.
"It's playoff time. None of these games are going to be easy. It was just nice to see the girls buckle down and pull one out when we needed it."
Forest Hills showed it wasn't going to go away easily as freshman Samantha Papcunik buried two long shots -- from the 15- and 20-yard line, respectively -- to tie the game at two going into the half.
"We just needed to get that momentum going," Forest Hills coach Lari Gallaher said. "Once we are able to do that, the ball was rolling in our favor at that point. You don't want to see your season end this way, especially with such a hard-fought game. It would've been nice to be the other way."
The Lady Eagles put the game away with LaRosa's second score of the night from Vance and from there it was a matter of playing strong defensive soccer.
"We focused more on getting into those gaps, made a little bit of shift in the back line to make sure we weren't getting beat on the side that we were being beat," Sparacino said.
After knocking out a future Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference counterpart, an old foe and future fellow conference member Central now awaits the Lady Eagles in the semifinals on Monday at a site and time to be announced. That's a challenge Tyrone is looking forward to embracing.
"It's going to be a good test, and hopefully going to be a good test for them," Sparacino said.
SCORE BY HALVES
Forest Hills…………………………………..2 0 - 2
Tyrone………………………………………….2 1 - 3
First Half: T - Campbell (Vance), 4:37; T - LaRosa (Moore), 13:46; FH - Papcunik (Daubert), 33:14; FH - Papcunik (Daubert), 39:30.
Second Half: T - LaRosa (Vance), 9:55.
Records: Forest Hills (11-8), Tyrone (13-6).