Photo Gallery by Jeff Yoder

Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – A look at the records and the rankings probably stamped the City High girls soccer team as the favorite coming into Friday’s game against rival West.

The Women of Troy were 0-5, unranked and struggling to score. The Little Hawks were 4-1, ranked 13th and on a four-game winning streak.

But the weight of history loomed over this game, a history dominated by West in recent years.

For all the talk of favorites, City had to prove to West and to itself that this was a different year.

The Little Hawks got contributions from some unlikely sources and rode a big second half to a convincing 4-0 victory before a packed house at the Iowa soccer complex.

City’s last victory over West came in 2011.

“It’s been so long, and it feels amazing to beat them,” junior Madelynn Fontana said. “It feels so good that I actually made an impact. It’s exciting to be on a team that beat West in the City-West game.”

“We’re showing that we can be a pretty strong team against who we have to compete against,” City coach Michael Prunty said. “There’s a lot more learning for this group to do.”

Fontana broke the ice with a goal in the 28th minute. It was her first of the season.

 Fontana was roaming free about 20 yards from the goal and hit a perfect floater that eluded the West keeper.

“The hype of this game makes you nervous but also makes you super excited,” Fontana said. “I’m normally a defender and when I got into a position where I could score, normally I wouldn’t take those, but I had the confidence and I had the energy and I thought ‘just kick it’ and I hope it goes in.

“I think it was a big momentum for this team, and it just got the ball rolling for us to start taking control.”

That score held up deep into the second half. 

Finally with 12 minutes left sophomore reserve Karissa Dilanni scored her first goal of the season to give the Little Hawks some breathing room.

“It’s just amazing; it’s such a rush to score my first goal in the City-West game this year,” Dilanni said.

Less than a minute later Dilanni fed Sydney DePrenger for a third goal.

“I got the ball from Sam (Schroder) and Sydney was just yelling, and I looked up and saw her and passed it through the defenders, and she was able to score,” Dilanni said.

DePrenger returned the favor a few minutes later, feeding Dilanni for her second goal and the 4-0 final score.  DePrenger was sent flying on a hard tackle but managed to get the ball to Dilanni in the box.

“We’ve just had great connections this year, and we have Sydney out wide with her speed and she’s able to cross it in,” Dilanni said. “We have our midfielders who help us get it up.”

“She was not someone we were as focused on and maybe we should have been, “West coach Dave Rosenthal said. “She taught us a lesson today.”

West mounted a number of attacks and actually out-shot City, but goalkeeper Naomi Meurice was terrific in making some point-blank saves and had help from her back line with some last-second clear-outs.

“She’s a really, really good keeper, and we didn’t solve the puzzle well tonight,” Rosenthal said.

“We had to play around it, see where they were pressing and how can we split that,” Meurice said. “A lot of it is just muscle memory. It doesn’t really go through my head. You’ve got to be ready for it.”

“We always have to work on our defensive shapes,” Fontana said. “And I think sometimes we got caught up chasing. Once we figured out to (stay in a zone) and be calm and watch the ball not watch the player, then that’s when we started to control them.”

Rosenthal thought his team needed to pressure City’s back line when it had wrested control of the ball.

“They got really comfortable playing the ball in the back and getting their shape,” Rosenthal said. “Pressuring on the back line was going to force some turnovers. It did. But the final third has been our problem this year. I mean, we have one goal.”

All that West pressure created opportunities for City to counter attack, Prunty said.

“We do have a few individuals who are designed to put on the counter,” he said. “We’re pretty quick and we can get in behind. They were definitely putting us under pressure, and as their numbers mounted more space was created in the back for us. And so we were able to win possession and get going quickly.”