Vitalis's high school career ends abruptly

Vitalis Lost For the Season In the second game of 2012 for the Wildcat girls’ soccer team, senior forward Gwen Vitalis broke her leg in two places and will miss the entire season. Vitalis was counted on to be a large part of the Wildcat scoring attack. The Wildcats were playing at home against Duluth Denfeld. With the score tied 0-0, Vitalis carried the ball towards the net. She pushed it a little too far out in front of her, and the aggressive Denfeld goalkeeper raced out to try to cover the ball. Vitalis and the keeper arrived at the ball at the same time. The players collided and the keeper’s knee hit Vitalis in the shin. The ball popped loose, and play continued for several seconds before anyone realized Vitalis wasn’t getting back up. Vitalis was tended to on the field for 20-25 minutes before she was taken to a local hospital. Wildcat head coach Chris Haggerty said that the surgery went well and that Vitalis should be fine in the future, but he confirmed that she would miss the entire season. Hermantown 3, Chisago Lakes 1 In the season opener, the young Wildcats were “nervous”, according to Haggerty. They spotted Hermantown a 3-0 lead. A furious comeback attempt near the end of the game fell short and the Wildcats lost 3-1. The game was played at Hermantown on Friday, August 24. In the first half, Hermantown was awarded a free kick on a handball just outside the box.

They chipped it over goalkeeper Gabby Randall to take a 1-0 lead. In the second half, a Wildcat defender and a Hermantown forward got their legs tangled in the Wildcat penalty area. The referee gave Hermantown a penalty kick and the Hawks converted it to go up 2-0. Just five minutes later, the same thing happened to Wildcat Hannah Trandahl at the other end and no penalty kick was awarded. Poor defending led to a third Hermantown goal and the Wildcats found themselves down 3-0. With ten minutes left, the Wildcats started to put the pressure on. With two minutes remaining, Gwen Vitalis popped a shot over the keeper and into the net to cut the Hawk lead to 3-1. With just a minute to go, Hannah Trandahl put one in the net that, apparently, pulled the Wildcats within a goal. But the referee ruled that Maddie Alliegro interfered with the goalkeeper and disallowed the goal. “Maddie was standing in front of the keeper,” said Haggerty, “but the keeper was nowhere near the shot and had no chance to make the save to begin with.” The last minute ticked off the clock as the Wildcats went down to defeat. “We have only three starters left from a strong team,” said Haggerty. “We had a couple of early chances and didn’t convert them.

We had a lot of nerves and didn’t know what to expect. After the game, it was ‘welcome to reality now’ and we emphasized to the players that we’ve got to trust in what we’ve been learning.” Wildcat goalkeeper Gabby Randall broke her femur playing rugby in the offseason. She just returned to practice recently and the Wildcats are happy to have her back in the crease for the start of the season. Chisago Lakes 0, Duluth Denfeld 0 (O.T.) A well-played game by both teams was overshadowed by the serious leg injury to Vitalis as the Wildcats and Duluth Denfeld played to a 0-0 overtime tie last Saturday, August 25 at Chisago Lakes. “We passed the ball around well and created a good number of scoring chances,” said Chris Haggerty. “We shot it into the goalkeeper several times and she also made some great saves. It was a strong physical game, but not a dirty game at all. The Denfeld coach said it was the best game he had seen in years. It seemed like a draw was a fair result for this one.” A Denfeld player was injured during a second half collision and the preliminary diagnosis was that she had a concussion. She was also down on the field for 20-25 minutes.

So with the two injury stoppages and two overtimes, it was a long day on the soccer field. “With our main goal scorer out, we’ll have to reorganize our playing formation,” said Haggerty. “We’ll see how it goes against Fridley. I am excited about our program. We’ve got some good eighth graders coming up and Barry [JV coach Barry Hindt] is excited about the JV. This will be a developmental season for us. Maddie Lutz hasn’t been able to play yet because of a back injury, but she may be able to come back soon. And she may turn into that goal scorer that every team needs.” The Wildcats play their first conference game tonight at Fridley at 7 p.m.