The News Journal
6/3/00
St. Mark's to take best shot at A.I.'s dynasty
by Kevin Tresolini - Staff reporter
NEWARK -- The girls soccer season will reach its expected conclusion tonight, with an A.I. duPont-St. Mark's title game.
A.I.'s stature as the four-time defending champion hardly makes the outcome inevitable, however.
In St. Mark's, A.I. faces a formidable threat to its iron-fisted reign, which features an 85-0-1 record in the Tigers' last 86 in-state games.
"This is an even game," said first-year A.I. coach Shibaji Chakraborty. "Am I scared of St. Mark's? Sure I am."
Both teams are 18-1. A.I. lost to Ephrata (Pa.). St. Mark's lone defeat was 3-2 against A.I. on April 1, when 1999 state Player of the Year Beth Belanger scored 2 goals for A.I.
Belanger was later lost for the season with a broken leg, which levels the playing field somewhat for tonight's rematch.
"A.I. is the one team that can lose a player like Belanger," St. Mark's coach Tom DeMatteis said. "They have an air about them because they have other players, like [senior midfielder] Tracey Withrow, who are talented and know what to do and go out and do it."
Withrow and four other A.I. seniors who have been on teams that have compiled a 74-2-1 overall record will play their final games.
Each side has roared through the tournament's first three rounds, with St. Mark's dispatching Newarl 5-2 in the semifinals and A.I. taming Tatnall 4-1.
"We have to play at the same high level we did at the beginning of the Newark game and see that through the whole game," said DeMatteis, whose team scored four times in the first 20 minutes against Newark.
St. Mark's seeks its first title in the tournament's six-year history, having lost in two finals before -- 2-1 to A.I. last year and 4-1 to Dickinson in the 1995 inaugural. A victory would make St. Mark's the first to claim both boys and girls state soccer championships in the same year.
"St. Mark's has a tremendous forward line," said Chakraborty, who is most concerned with his defense's ability to hold up. "What they do is come at you like hounds. They won't leave you alone. One mistake and they can capitalize because of the quality of their players."