After a great start to the season, the 2018 Tyrone/Bellwood girls soccer team did not have the season they were hoping for, finishing with a 3-11-2 final record.

The Lady Eagles started the season with a 2-1 win over the 2017 Mountain League champs Penns Valley.

After this the team fell into a long losing slump until Philipsburg. The Lady Eagles beat them twice, 8-0 and 5-1.

On the positive side, the team did earn two ties against top seeded district teams. Tyrone tied West Branch 0-0 in the middle of the season. West Branch was the number one seed in the single A districts. The Lady Eagles also tied the number two ranked team in quad A, Bellefonte. Bellefonte beat Tyrone earlier in the season, but with a more defensive formation, Tyrone shut down a key player for Red Raiders, leading to a scoreless tie.

Despite the tough record, Head coach Mike Sparacino was generally positive in his assessment of the season.

“Overall, I’m very pleased with the season.  While we didn’t win as many games as I had hoped, we made great improvements in how we played the game and how competitive we were in games,” said Sparacino.

Tyrone is losing four skilled and encouraging seniors. Riley D’Angelo was one the teams leading scorer of the season and in the history of Tyrone soccer. D’Angelo broke the score record with 77 goals in the last minute of her last career game. Aaryanna Wright was a midfielder and forward. She helped hype up the team for games and although she wasn’t a captain, helped lead the team. Seniors Lizzie Ake and Kara Engle are both defensively strong seniors that will be missed next year on the line.

“I think that this season was a good learning opportunity for our team, and we’re only going to get better from here,” said junior Madison Soellner.

At the end of the season banquet, four players received awards for their work.

Engle got the Golden Eagle Award for being a very hard worker, Cate Baran received the Defensive MVP, Lindsey Parks received the Offensive MVP, and Riley D’Angelo received the Overall MVP award.  D’Angelo also was named a first team Mountain League All-star, and Kenzie Latchford and Natalie Saltsgiver received second team Mountain League All-star awards.

Although the season didn’t go how the girls expected, the team hopes to have a better season next year and to return stronger with the many freshman from the undefeated junior high team coming up.

“With the development of our freshman combined with a talented group of eighth graders coming off of an undefeated season, I’d say we have a very bright future,” said Sparacino.

The Girls Jr. High team went 16-0 this season. They had a very strong year, and the soccer program hopes this continues into next year’s varsity season.