ST. CLAIRSVILLE — When it comes to soccer, the Wheeling area has had an embarrassment of riches of the quality of athletes. And players from the ‘Friendly City’ showed what they were capable of Sunday during the girls OVAC All-Star game at Red Devil Stadium.

Wheeling Park’s Emma Delk and Abbey Anderson, Linsly’s Faith Paull and Wheeling Central’s Maggie Fahey combined for seven goals as West Virginia routed Ohio 9-0.

“They definitely played well together,” West Virginia and Linsly coach Darryl Crews said. “It speaks highly of the quality of soccer in this area and it was just a pleasure to get to play with girls that you coached against for a number of years and have them out helping your team.”

After only scoring twice in the first half, the Mountain State put on a scoring parade in the second half as it found the back of the net seven times.

Anderson got things going for West Virginia with the first goal of the game about 8:30 in the game. The score remained 1-0 for about17 minutes before Parkersburg South’s Jessica Life gave her team some breathing room scoring off a Megan Cramer corner kick to put the score at 2-0 with 4:33 left in the first half.

“You get as many talented people together like this, they really run themselves,” Crews said. “There was a lot of leadership was shown before the game with them getting each other ready. Even those I was listed as head coach (Oak Glen) Coach (Ryan) Wells and (Wheeling Park) coach (Carrie) Hanna, they did everything. I just stood around, watched and made sure things happened. Our goal was to let the girls have a good time and play a lot. We met those goals.”

Paull opened the scoring for West Virginia in the second half as she scored two consecutive in a span of about three minutes. The Linsly standout received the Chuck Robinson Memorial Offensive MVP Award for West Virginia.

With 22:02 left in the game, Fahey got in on the scoring followed by a Delk goal less than two minutes later to put the score at 6-0 with 20:55 left.

Anderson tallied her second score of the contest with just over 11 minutes left.

After an own goal by Ohio, Delk wrapped up the scoring as she found the back of the net for the second time with 33 seconds remaining.

“First off it’s really nice to be able to coach some players you had at the beginning of the year and throughout the whole season,” Ohio and Stebuenville Catholic coach Jonathan Hoover said. “It’s also nice to be able to coach some girls that you coached against and work with coaches on the opposite side of sidelines. The score line didn’t go the way we would have like it to, but it just shows that West Virginia had a lot talent this year and were able to get things done. Our girls had a great time and had fun playing out there. A lot of them, this is the last time they’ll play soccer so, it’s a great experience for them to have one more game at the end of their senior year.”

Wheeling Park’s Annalese Aderholt won the defensive MVP award for West Virginia while Beaver Local’s Riley Britt (offense) and Cambridge’s McKenzie Deeks (defense)were honored for Ohio. Deeks had a busy day in goal as she compiled 14 saves for the Buckeye State.

NOTES

Wheeling Park coach Carrie Hanna was named OVAC Coach of the year. Linsly’s Athena Mariano (1A/3A), St. Clairsville’s Macy Malin (4A) and Morgantown’s Samantha Brown (5A) all won Player of the Year in their class.