Photos from Journal
Dryden girls edge Notre Dame for IAC Large School title
DRYDEN – Dryden's biggest strength and Elmira Notre Dame's biggest weakness factored into the only goal in Saturday night's Interscholastic Athletic Conference Large School girls soccer championship game at Tompkins Cortland Community College.
All-state junior Taylor Bennett settled a corner kick from Abigail Barr and blasted a shot into the right side of the net with 19:25 to go in the first half, sending the Purple Lions (15-0) to their second win in three years against the Crusaders in the conference final, 1-0.
"It's always exciting to win a championship. You get pretty psyched about it," said Dryden head coach Janine Bennett, who is Taylor's mom. "My team's really young. Very few of them were here two years ago. I have 11 freshmen and an eighth-grader on my team out of my 19 kids. A lot of them were modified soccer players or ball girls last time we won this. For them this is pretty incredible what they've been achieving and we're excited."
Bennett's goal on a rainy night was her 24th of the season and only the ninth allowed this year by the Crusaders (11-3-1). She was a first-team Class B all-state pick last season and Notre Dame head coach Steve Weber said she's probably the best player in Section 4.
Weber said earlier in the week he was concerned about corner kicks, which were the difference in Notre Dame's two previous losses this season. That included a 2-1 setback against Dryden in the finals of the Watkins Glen tournament on Sept. 13.
"We're just not aggressive enough. We stand and watch on the corners," Weber said. "You've got to be tough in those situations. It's psychological. You just have to be tough."
The corner from Barr wasn't typical, Janine Bennett said.
"Normally our corners come in and they're high, they're up in the air," she said. "Taylor has the ability to get up and over everybody she plays against. If she's on line with the ball, she scores several goals that way. But she has the ability to take it out of the air on the ground, too. … It was a good ball by Abigail to put it out there. The shot was just a rocket."
Notre Dame lost in the IAC Large School final for the third straight year and was denied its first conference championship since 2004. Last year the Crusaders lost 2-1 to Lansing after falling by the same score to Dryden in 2012.
The Crusaders put themselves in position for several scoring chances, particularly in the second half, but they were unable to send many solid shots toward Dryden freshman goalkeeper Sarah Westcott.
"It's three years in a row we've come here and lost by a goal," Weber said. "After three years in a row I have a hard time finding any consolation just coming and losing. I don't think we played as well as we could have played. At times we seemed intimidated. I'd like to say I'm pleased, but I'm not really pleased."
Janine Bennett said the contest was much like she expected, particularly after her team's one-goal win over Notre Dame in September.
"We knew coming in that it would be a game that could go either way because I felt that in the fall," she said. "They're a quality team. We've been working on some really specific detail things because our kids are so young. They got their details down that we've been working on."
Second-seeded Notre Dame has a first-round bye in the Section 4 Class C tournament and hosts either No. 7 Groton or No. 10 Bainbridge-Guilford in a quarterfinal Oct. 25.
Dryden, the state's second-ranked Class B team, is seeded fourth in the Class B tournament and hosts No. 5 Newark Valley at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in a quarterfinal.
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