SCOTIA — Alaina Lange made plenty of memories during her time playing girls’ soccer at Scotia-Glenville High School.
Tuesday night, as she brought a team of her own to Hitchcock Field for the first time in her head coaching career, plenty of them came flooding back.
“It’s my first time coaching on my old home grounds,” Lange said after her Lansingburgh team fell 1-0 to her alma mater in the first round of the Section II Class A tournament. “It is surreal, knowing all the memories that I built on this field.”
Lange, a 2005 Scotia-Glenville graduate, is in her fourth season as Lansingburgh’s head coach. She took over the Knights’ program following a hugely successful six-season run at Schalmont, where her teams put up a 112-7-3 overall record, won four Section II Class B championships and a state title.
Tuesday’s playoff game, despite the result, was another highlight.
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Things were different when Lange was at Scotia-Glenville — Hitchcock Field was grass, instead of artificial turf, and was used for only a few night soccer games with an adjacent grass field being the primary home for soccer — but she still treasures her time as a Tartan.
“Preseason stuff on this field, playing night games on the grass in this environment, it’s something that I’ll never forget,” Lange said. “The six years I spent with Lise Williams got me to where I am now. She;s a coach that I’ve looked up to since I started playing soccer for Scotia, and the fact that I can come out here and have the team that I’m coaching now at Lansingburgh put up the type of game that they did against my old high school, that was fun to watch.”
Lange didn’t get to go up against her old head coach, as Williams stepped down after the 2021 season following 21 years and 297 wins with the Tartans.
Her successor, Maggie Healy, earned her first Section II playoff win Tuesday as Scotia-Glenville (No. 7 seed, 8-8 overall) got a goal from Abby Snyder in the 16th minute that proved to be the game’s only scoring.
It was a satisfying win for Healy, who has seen peaks and valleys in her first season with Scotia-Glenville’s varsity squad.
“It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve had our ups and downs,” Healy said. “We graduated eight or nine girls last year, and that was a lot of the starters, too. So, we’re rebuilding, but we’re doing OK. We’ve got a lot of time ahead of us to rebuild the team and go from there.”
The game’s only goal was a beauty, as a long through ball from Ella Drake found Snyder free down the right wing. Snyder then cut toward the goal and unleashed a perfect, curling shot that gave Lansingburgh (No. 10 seed, 1-14 overall) goalie Ariana Dingley no chance to stop it
“It was beautiful,” Healy said. “That pass, that through ball, and then Abby just placed that beautifully in the upper 90. You couldn’t ask for more.”
“I have to hand it to 22 [Snyder],” Lange said. “Because she earned that goal. You can’t put in a much better spot than that, and that ended up being the difference maker.”
Scotia-Glenville controlled possession for much of the night, and while Lansingburgh’s speedy defense handled most of the Tartans’ attacks, it also meant little opportunity for the Knights to get any momentum on the offensive end.
That meant a relatively quiet night for Scotia-Glenville goalkeeper Kortney Clark, who needed just one save to record the shutout.
Up next for Scotia-Glenville is a quarterfinal matchup Friday at 3 p.m. at No. 2 seed Queensbury. When the two teams met Sept. 8 in a Foothills Council contest, Queensbury came away with a 2-1 overtime win.
Halftime score: Scotia-Glenville led 1-0. Lansingburgh scoring: None. Scotia-Glenville scoring: Snyder 1-0, Drake 0-1. Goalies: Lansingburgh, Dingley, 5 saves. Scotia-Glenville, Clark, 1 save.
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