VHS takes 2 awards

By the Christmas break, Vicksburg High had little chance of salvaging a winning record. The Gators were plodding along, partially because of a brutal early-season schedule and partially because of their own up-and-down play.

As he assessed the situation, though, Jason Bennett never panicked. He knew the Gators were better than their record, and that the lumps they had taken against teams like Northwest Rankin, Pearl and Madison Central would pay off.

And he was right.

The Gators pulled things together in time to make a run to the Class 4A semifinals. Using a defensive-oriented strategy and the stellar play of junior goalkeeper Bowen Woodson, Vicksburg allowed only 11 goals in 10 games after the break. The stretch run salvaged a season that looked lost for a time, and earned Bennett his the Vicksburg Post Coach of the Year award.

Woodson, who posted seven shutouts in 20 games in goal and had a 1.65 goals against average, was picked as the boys Player of the Year. He’s the fourth straight Gator to win the award, after Michael Cooper won it the last three years.

“I don’t know that I really did anything different, other than make sure they kept plugging away,” Bennett said of his approach down the stretch. “They finally started winning some games and realized they were better than they were.”

While Bennett downplayed his adjustments, Woodson said there was a noticeable difference after the Gators started 2008 with losses to Florence and Pearl — two of the 13 playoff teams on Vicksburg’s schedule. VHS also played five of the six state finalists from the state’s three classifications, with only Class 1A-2A-3A champ Madison-St. Joe left out.

“When we were on that slide we weren’t serious in practice. He got us serious,” Woodson said. “We ran a mile in warm-ups before we did anything else and got in good shape. That helped a lot.”

Bennett also made a key adjustment to his formation, changing from a two-man backfield on defense to a “flat back” defense where nobody played deep. Players like Brian Fitzgerald, Mack Middleton and Angelo Toole-Carriere stepped up their games to make the scheme work, and having Woodson as the last line of defense gave Bennett the confidence to take the gamble.

Woodson, a lanky 6-foot-1 keeper, made 201 saves in 20 games in net to go along with his seven shutouts. He got to almost all of the balls he was supposed to, and a few that it seemed he couldn’t. In the North State final against Pearl, a 2-0 loss, Woodson made 21 saves — including one from point-blank range that knocked him flat on his back.

The defensive alignment led to a few of Woodson’s dramatic saves. With no one back, teams had more breakaways and two-on-one chances than they’d normally get, and Woodson had to take more risks to make plays. It was a calculated risk, Bennett said.

“When I moved to that flat back, I knew I had Bowen and he would help with the defense. He was going to take up any slack,” Bennett said. “He’s got such quick, baseball-type reflexes and can get to things that you don’t think he’s going to get to.”

Pearl proved to be a major stumbling block for VHS this season and promises to be a thorn in its side next year as well. Pearl, which routed Florence for its fourth straight Class 4A championship a few days after beating VHS, handed the Gators four losses in 2007-08 — nearly a quarter of their total.

Vicksburg will return all but one starter next season, though, while Pearl will graduate about two-thirds of its lineup. That shift in experience has Woodson confident the Gators can challenge for a state title again next winter.

“In the playoff game against Pearl, that’s going to be our lineup next year. They had a ton of seniors. So we have a very, very good shot at winning it,” Woodson said.

WC’s Fischenich takes girls player of the year

By Jeff Byrd

To say Kristine Fischenich is multi-talented is an understatement.

The Warren Central senior is trying her hand at track and field this spring.

That is when she is not working on her golf game or preparing to enter the pre-med program at Ole Miss on a nearly full academic scholarship. She is also a pretty good soccer player.

Fischenich earned the Vicksburg Post’s 2008 Girls Soccer Player of the Year after leading Warren County with 18 goals this season for the Lady Vikes.

“This makes me smile,” Fischenich said of receiving the honor, which caps an eight-year career of playing competitive soccer.

Her senior year, in which she helped WC to a 9-8-5 record under new coach Janet McMaster, will also be her last.

“This caps it all off in a good way. Soccer was something I did for fun. It’s incredible to earn this. I’m glad they appreciate what I did on the field,” Fischenich said.

Warren Central appeared to being facing a major rebuilding job after the loss of collegiate-bound players like 2007 Player of the Year Mary Clare Scurria to Mississippi State and Kari Lieberman and Chelsa Jones to Meridian Community College. The Lady Vikes also lost their coach when Kristin Gough stepped down after four years.

“We were an incredibly young team, with a new coach, but it didn’t seem to affect us too much,” Fischenich said. “Coach McMaster has a different style than Kristin did. Kristin was very intense. She kept us in line. But I thought Coach McMaster did a great job for us.”

Fischenich responded by taking on the scoring load for the Lady Vikes.

“She always seem to be in the right place,” McMaster said. “She had a good handle on finding the right opportunity for us. She was a great leader for what was a really young team.”

The 18 goals scored was the most for Fischenich in five years.

“I scored 18 in my eighth-grade year. Then in my ninth-grade year, I got hurt and tore my ACL, the MCL and everything else and had surgery. It was a long comeback. I still don’t have an ACL and not much of an MCL in my knee,” said Fischenich, who gutted out her last two seasons, wearing a knee brace.

Then Fischenich and her family had to deal with an accident to her father, Craig, a well-known figure in Warren County soccer circles as a referee. Craig Fischenich had a fall at home and is partially paralyzed.

“He had some nerve feelings within the first 24 hours, which is usually a good sign. But since then, he’s had no feeling below his waist. It may come back it may not. But it hasn’t been that bad. My dad has a great attitude. He keeps going on. He’s even making plans on working on his boat,” Kristine said.

Finding medical solutions to help people is something Kristine wants to pursue. Originally, she wanted to attend Tulane University, but her $80,000 in scholarships would cover only the first two years. Now she’s headed to Ole Miss.

“My scholarships would pretty much pay for most everything at Ole Miss,” Kristine said. “I want to go into bio-medical engineering, specifically to work with prosthetics.

“A lot of people think of it as dealing with just limbs, but there also internal organs like the lungs and heart.”

At Ole Miss, she’ll join her older brother, Jacob, who is a freshman honors college student.