The Shaler girls soccer team kicked down the door to the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs last season after a 37-year absence. The Titans spent the early part of their follow-up campaign working toward besting their cameo appearance.<\/p>\n
Shaler has shown plenty of fight during its 4-1-1 start, including a 1-1 start in Section 1-3A play.<\/p>\n
Junior forward Addy Paladin, who scored two goals in a 7-1 win over Penn Hills, feels the momentum building.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we actually aim for something rather than just playing and hoping,\u201d Paladin said. \u201cWe have a goal actually set for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Titans recently picked up a nonsection win over Obama Academy and drew with perennial Class 4A title contender Penn-Trafford. Shaler has grown as a program and has plenty of attacking options.<\/p>\n
Junior forward\/midfielder Naudia Zotter is one of the Titans\u2019 leading attackers. Zotter, who has scored six goals, plays with plenty of passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaudia will run through a wall if it means she can get a goal,\u201d Titans coach Bill Ament said. \u201cShe will do the same thing in the middle of the field. So no matter what, she\u2019s going to give 110 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zotter said the trick for her is to try and harness her emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to control it as best as I can, but I\u2019m not very good at it,\u201d Zotter said. \u201cI have a lot of role models, like my coaches from Riverhounds, and I\u2019ve always loved the game since I was little, so I\u2019ve always had the passion with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
On senior night, Shaler defeated Obama Academy, 5-0. Zotter scored a goal and had two assists. Zoey Cieslak, Caroline Decheck and Olivia Claycomb also scored for the Titans.<\/p>\n
Ashleigh Hansel and Gabby Alcalde also have been important contributors in the attack.<\/p>\n
Ament said he felt like Shaler showed some of its best work during a 2-1 overtime win over Beaver. While the Titans had to go to overtime to pick up the result, they finished with a large advantage in shots on goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played our best soccer,\u201d Ament said. \u201cI think we ended up with 24 shots for the game. They had three. \u2026 I\u2019m loving the improvement that we have so far, especially in our midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shaler is hoping to maintain its momentum as it gets into the meat of a difficult section schedule. Fox Chapel and Mars loom as difficult matchups. The Titans lost 2-1 to the Foxes to open the season.<\/p>\n
Paladin is excited to see how the Titans continue to challenge difficult competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we actually play as a team and like to move forward,\u201d Paladin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shaler girls soccer team kicked down the door to the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs last season after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-143646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}