Wayne County Life

By John Addyman

   MARION (Oct 20 10) – It was a nice touch.

   On senior night, and the last game of the season at home, the public address system started the pre-game ceremonies with the playing of the Danish National Anthem, in honor of Marion foreign exchange student Andre Winther, an attacker for the Black Knights.

   In fact, with all the blonde hair on the field after Homecoming color changes, it looked like some Scandinavian national team had come to Wayne County.

   Winther responded to the kindness by getting an assist on the first – and what turned out to be the game-winning – goal, stuck in the back of the net by Nick DeLyser. The Knights then converted a bang-bang play with four seconds left in the first half for the second score, and a 2-0 win over North Rose-Wolcott.

   The Knights had a 14-4 shots differential in the first half, 11-2 in the second, and pushed the tempo of the game from the outset. The Marion midfield pushed any Cougar offense to the side, where the speed of the Black Knights made the difference time and again.

   “My hat’s off to Marion,” said NR-W coach Scotty martin. “They played an excellent game; they took it to us. They’re very athletic, and it shows. We had trouble staying with their speed. That speed is a killer in this sport.”

   Marion coach Jared DeLyser said his kids had a number of motivating factors at work – senior night, a good crowd, and a loss to East Rochester on Monday in the last 30 seconds.

   “In our last game against ER, our midfield didn’t show up to play, really. We left a lot of space and dropped back too much,” he said. “Getting knocked off with 30 seconds left, well, that opened some eyes. Tonight we didn’t let down. This was a good game to end the regular season on.”

   Nick DeLyser got the first score with 32:42 left in the first half. Winther punched a pointblank shot at the right side of the net that was kicked off the goal line by a Cougar defender – right to DeLyser, who one-timed the ball with even more authority from 10 feet away.

   The Cougars thought they had an equalizer with 23:18 left in the half when Ethan Humbert poked a shot through traffic past Knight keeper Brad LeFevre, but the officials disallowed the goal because of offsides.

   “We made a defensive boo-boo on that first goal,” said Martin. “That should never have gone in. If we had played defense on that ball, we were out of trouble, but we let it through. Too bad.”

   Marion got its insurance marker just as the half was ending, Ian Metcalfe playing a ball that had come in from a corner kick and got batted around. He zipped a pea past NR-W keeper Jake Welkley that just snuck into the corner, hitting the pole and bouncing in. Metcalfe’s teammate, Travis DeLyser, was on top of the ball as it got close to the net – if Metcalfe’s line had been off just slightly, DeLyser had the goal for certain.

   “We had three guys around the ball,” said Martin. “We just couldn’t knock it out, and that was the difference.”

   Nick DeLyser’s goal was his fourth of the year; Metcalfe connected on his second.

   Welkley made seven saves for North Rose-Wolcott, which now has a 7-5-3 ecord (6-3-2 in the Wayne County League); LeFevre stopped four shots for Marion, which is 1-2-2 (9-2-1 WCL).