Last season, Shikellamy got into the District 4 Class AA soccer playoffs with a losing a record and shocked the soccer world by upsetting top-seeded and once-beaten Athens in the first round.
But what to casual fans was a shocking result, to those who follow the Braves, it could have been classified as a miracle.
That’s because nobody gave Shikellamy a fighting chance to win a lot of games last season, let alone a playoff game.
And that was because just after the first game, the Braves were down two players because of injuries — and those injuries were to a pair of juniors Shikellamy was counting on for experience with a roster that was more than 90 percent freshmen and sophomores.
Flash forward a year, and with Margo Graybill and MiKayla Neff back in the lineup, the Braves aren’t backing into the playoffs this year.
Shikellamy is a game behind Danville in the Heartland Athletic Conference Division I race, with those two teams playing today. And the Braves are assured of a top seed in the upcoming district playoffs.
Graybill and Neff are the lone seniors on the squad, and their journey to this point sums up what the Braves have been about the last few years: perseverance.
Graybill, a defender, was the first to go down last summer during a summer league game with an ankle injury. Two days after surgery, she was on the sidelines and watched midfielder/forward Neff go down with an ACL tear in her left knee.
Both girls had surgery at Geisinger Medical Center, performed by doctors from the Geisinger Sports Medicine team.
But that wasn’t the only assist from Geisinger.
Shikellamy’s certified athletic trainer Mike Elder is a Geisinger trainer and was there for every step of the recovery for both Graybill and Neff.
And that care from Elder and the Sports Medicine Team at Geisinger had the pair of seniors back on the field at the start of the season and helping the Braves to yet another amazing season — this one with very attainable goals of winning a league and district title.
“It feels really good to know that we can contribute again and go back out on that field and help our team,” Graybill said. “I was really excited to step back out on it for a game because I hadn’t played one in two years.”
A TRUE RIVALRY: There are a lot of rivalries in the area in girls soccer, but none of them actually compares to the one between Northumberland Christian and Meadowbrook Christian.
The two teams have not only won or shared the Allegheny Christian Athletic Conference title the last eight seasons, they have also faced each other in the championship game every year.
And that doesn’t look like it will change this season.
The two teams split in the regular season and will share the title once again heading into the ACAA tournament this week at Sunbury Christian School in Northumberland.
Meadowbrook will be the No. 2 seed after losing a coin toss between the two 9-1 squads. The Lions come in having won the last three titles. But all of those crowns were won at Centre County Christian School, which had hosted the event the last three years.
With both teams poised to make it through the brackets, another showdown between the two best girls soccer teams in the ACAA — not just this year but historically — is inevitable.
ORIGINAL POST:
http://www.dailyitem.com/sports/chris-nagy-on-high-school-girls-soccer-braves-are-on/article_1ca0564e-76d7-11e5-8803-bf8ec5a880f1.html