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Frewsburg holds off Holland, returns to Class C finals

HOLLAND -- After having its streak of six sectional championships end last year the Frewsburg girls soccer team set a goal to get back and return to its spot atop Class C in Section VI.

Before Frewsburg could begin thinking about taking on Wilson in a rematch it needed to get past a scrappy Holland squad that earned the 2-seed after winning the Erie County Interscholastic Conference 4. The Lady Dutchmen proved quite the challenge for the Bears, but Jaden Jimerson's hat trick kept Frewsburg in front for an eventual 4-2 victory on Tuesday afternoon.

"Just an amazing performance by our girls," Frewsburg head coach Scott Stone stated. "A real gritty performance. We have been in these style games before, there are not many types of games we haven't been in before so we just rely on our experience in those big games. We always tell the girls you've got to stay level headed, whether you're up or down you can't get too high, you can't get too low and we did a real good job of that today."

Despite premium chances coming early, the Bears were unable to break the deadlock and Holland settled in and began evening the field. After three close Frewsburg opportunities in the first 15 minutes Holland nearly put a loose ball in the box past Leah Pasieka, but the freshman goalkeeper kept the game scoreless.

About 10 minutes later, Audrey Eckwahl nearly nodded in the first Frewsburg tally with a header in the box. As the clock winded down in the half it looked like it would be scoreless going into the break.

Then with just over a minute left in the half, shortly after nearly dribbling through the entire Holland defense, Jimerson took a ball off a give-and-go with Ellie Cappa and fired a perfect shot from nearly 20 yards away that went over the keeper and just under the bar for the 1-0 lead.

"We kind of switched some things around a bit," Stone said about adjusting to the Holland defense. "We noticed they were playing super high and kind of man-marking Audrey in the center-mid spot so we have Charlie, Trocki and Audrey who can all play center-mid. When teams do that to us we like to throw Audrey up top for a little bit and that kind of disrupted the game a bit later on in the first half. We felt once we did that with the girl man-marking it took a player out of the middle and Charlie is able to be very competitive in the middle when we do that and it switched the game up."

Frewsburg went into the break energized by the rocket shot from its junior striker and the Bears did not cool down in the 10 minute intermission. Within the first minute of the second half the Bears were already pressing and a ball from Eckwahl found Jimerson who took her time to rifle home her second goal of the game.

"I know Audrey didn't score today, she's like fourth in the section in scoring," Stone said about Eckwahl's performance. "She might have run 10-15 miles today. She was box-to-box, all over the field, we switched her around a little bit, we put her up top, we put her in the middle and she was just an animal for us out there today."

Many opponents have crumbled under the pressure by the Bears and cashed it in early, but the young Holland squad did not have any intentions of letting Frewsburg coast the final 39 minutes.

Just over 10 minutes after Frewsburg's second goal, Holland got on the board after a Hannah Krywalski cross found Sage Webber in the box who knocked a first shot before powering her rebound home to make it 2-1.

The Holland crowd erupted and it appeared as if the Lady Dutchmen would be seizing the momentum. However, Eckwahl had different plans deep in the central midfield causing a turnover just a minute later with Holland pressing and she bombed a perfect pass to Jimerson racing past midfield for a break to score her hat trick goal.

"Jaden Jimerson holds herself to an extremely high standard," Stone stated. "All of the girls do, that's the way we built our program. She was a little frustrated against Westfield/Brocton even though we came away with a big win. She played well, she didn't show up on the scoresheet like she wanted to and I told her we didn't need her then we needed her today. Boy did she ever come through, she had her sisters in the crowd and she just stepped up today."

Holland did not relent after giving up the quick strike to Jimerson on the counter attack and instead went right back to work for another goal. The Lady Dutchmen did not wait long as just two minutes later more chaos in the Frewsburg box saw Autumn Ruminski chipping home a goal to cut the lead to 3-2.

With about 20 minutes left, the pressure was really on the Bears to cool off the Holland attack.

The Frewsburg defense proved up to the task, shaking off the few bad minutes, the Bears did not allow many more Holland chances to get toward goal and the few that did Pasieka came up big with the save finishing with 10 in the contest.

"Our defense, they stick around," Stone said about his defense. "They can't get too down when things don't go our way, they need to have thick skin and I think they showed that today. I'd also like to mention our goalkeeper, we lost Elysse Gruber who in my opinion was the best goalie in Section VI, she was All-WNY last year as a sophomore. We lost her to an injury and her family moved away, but we've got a new keeper now and her name is Leah Pasieka and she's a freshman. She made multiple Elysse Gruber-style saves today. I don't know if we're advancing if we don't have Leah in goal today and we're super proud of her."

With the Holland (14-4-0) defense focused on Jimerson not getting a fourth goal, more space opened up on the counter attack for Charlie Lombardo and Jadyn Trocki. In the 79th minute, Lombardo took the space given to her on the left wing and with the Holland defense collapsing on her and Jimerson, she fired a pass to Trocki in the box who made no mistake putting the final nail in the coffin for the 4-2 semifinal win.

Already having the date marked on the calendar, Frewsburg (15-3-0) officially punched its ticket this Friday for the Section VI Class C final at Hamburg High School at 5 p.m. against No. 1 Wilson (17-0-0) for another rematch.

"Number one, the job is not finished," Stone stated. "We still remember what happened last year, we lost 1-0 after winning six straight. We said as soon as that game was over we will be back and at the beginning of every year the handbook comes out and we look at the sectional finals. We don't care where it is at, what time it is, this year it's October 30th at 5 p.m. and we want to be there. We're going back and we're looking to win, we're not just going back to play."