Yough girls still plan to contend in 2A

By JONATHAN GUTH

MVI Sports

Yough lost a tremendous amount of scoring, defense and goalkeeping from last year’s team that played in the WPIAL championship game, but ninth-year head coach Dann Appolonia is confident his squad can be just as solid this upcoming season.

Appolonia, a Ringgold graduate, led the Cougars to the girls’ district final in Class 2A last year for the first time in program history. Yough lost the match, 1-0, in double overtime to North Catholic, and then saw its magical season come to an end in the first round of the PIAA playoffs to Villa Maria out of Erie by a score of 4-2. The Cougars finished their season at 17-3-1 and were 10-1-1 in Section 3.

Yough had eight of its seniors from last year’s team graduate, including Justine Appolonia, who is the Cougars’ all-time leading scorer with 118 career goals. Appolonia, who had 33 tallies and 21 assists last year, is now playing soccer at Youngstown State.

Justine’s twin-sister, Gianna, was an All-WPIAL and All-Section performer at midfield. Yough also needs to replace All-WPIAL and All-Section defender Amber Biros, who is playing for Carlow University. Hadley Sleith, who was on the backline, was named to the All-Section team, and is continuing to play in college for Clarion University.

The Cougars will have a new keeper starting, as All-Section performer Sara Krofchek graduated. Krofchek had eight clean sheets and made 95 saves last year.

“We did lose a lot of seniors, but I am encouraged by what I’m seeing in the early part of the year here,” coach Appolonia said. “We lost those players, but by no means was the cupboard bare. We have some very strong returning players who contributed last year, and we have a lot of girls that, in my opinion, didn’t see a whole lot of time last year, but it was only because there were so many strong players in front of them.

“I think in my nine years of coaching here, there was probably only one other year where we had that strong of a team. In most years at Yough, those girls would have been starters or heavy contributors. They are waiting in the wing and chomping at the bit to step up.”

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