East kickers dash DSHA's title hopes

Wauwatosa East first-year girls soccer coach Rob Dubinski had the date circled on his calender for a long time.

"We have been waiting for this game all year long," Dubinski said of the game against powerful Divine Savior Holy Angels on May 21. "The first thing I did when I was hired at Tosa East was to look on the calendar for when we play DSHA."

The wait was worth it for Dubinski as his Red Raiders edged the Dashers, 2-1, and ruined their chance for a Greater Metro Conference Championship. Instead, Menomonee Falls won the title (5-1-1), just ahead of DSHA (4-1-2).

Tosa East was 3-3-1 in the GMC, tied for fourth place with Brookfield Central and Sussex Hamilton, each with seven points.

Three minutes after kickoff, DSHA got on the board on a goal from midfielder Hannah Roth. Once again, East came out of the gates slow and the Dashers made them pay.

But in the 21st minute, Katie Salmon sent her second corner kick into the box and it sailed past the goalie and East midfielder Shea Conway made a great far post run and hammered the ball in to the net to tie the game at 1-1.

Six minutes later Salmon served another perfect corner kick once again deep into the DSHA box and defender Alex Carlson crashed the far post hard and finished the serve for her first career-varsity goal and the eventual game winner.

"Alex is a very aggressive player," Dubinski said. "So we decided to start sending her into the box on dead balls to cause some havoc for the opposing defenders.

"She did just that and scored a great goal."

Complete performance

In the second half both teams came out ready to attack as scoring opportunities came at both ends with neither team being able to capitalize.

The final 30 minutes both teams battled to score the next goal but the clock ran out with Tosa East on top.

"Every single girl played at a high level, but I really need to give some extra praise to our defenders and our goalie Alyssa Conell," Dubinski said.

"Alyssa played at an extremely high level. She made several big plays to help maintain our lead and her play as well as our defenders Sammie Osinski, Sam Westphal, Kelli Swenson, Margaret Geertsen and Alex Carlson allowed us to get forward more often and attack DSHA's back line.

"It was the most complete 80 minutes we have played all year and it came against a highly-ranked team."

Running out of steam

The Red Raiders left everything on the table against the Dashers, as they dropped a 3-2 decision at New Berlin Eisenhower (7-6-2).

After 40 minutes of play they trailed 3-0.

"In 40 minutes they were able to score more goals on us then Brookfield East, Central and Falls combined."

Two minutes into the second half, Salmon, who was limited to five minutes because of illness, sent a cross into the box and found Alayah Walls for the first goal of the night.

East then scored in the 72nd minute when Walls crossed a ball into the box and found Lexi Jokisch who headed the ball past the diving keeper to put East down only a goal.

But then the Red Raiders ran out of gas.

"You could tell that we were extremely tired and that the huge push we made in the second half really took it out of us," Dubinski said.

Blanking King

The Red Raiders closed out the week by crushing Milwaukee King, 7-0, on Friday on Parents/Senior Night.

"We told the girls to go out and have some fun tonight and that's exactly what they did," Dubinski said.

Emily Bradley (Walls assist), Becca Pallo (Salmon assist), Swenson (Salmon assist), Ava Anderson, Tayla Ederesinghe (Christina Chen), Ederesinghe (Kiara Klink) scored for a 6-0 halftime lead.

In the second half Klink finished a shot off a pass from Westphal for the final goal.

The Red Raiders have five seniors — Walls, Conell, Jokisch, Conway and Geertsen.

Playoffs begin

Fifth-seeded Tosa East hosts 12th-seeded Milwaukee Hamilton at 7 p.m. today.

If the Red Raiders win, they face the winner of the fourth-seeded Wauwatosa West/13th-seeded Milwaukee South matchup on Saturday.

"We are very fortunate to be going into the playoffs close to full strength," Dubinski said.

The Red Raiders are hoping for a rematch against crosstown rival Tosa West for the regional title.

"We feel we have some unfinished business with the Trojans," Dubinski said about a 1-0 loss to the Trojans on May 4.