Rocky River vs. Bay girls soccer: Tessa Knapp’s hat-trick sends Rockets to Division III state final

MACEDONIA, Ohio — The Rocky River Pirates have been a major hurdle that the Bay Rockets had not been able to clear.

Tessa Knapp made sure that changed during Tuesday night's Division III state soccer semifinal at Nordonia's Boliantz Stadium, scoring three goals as the Rockets reached their first state championship since 2018 with a 4-1 win.

"Being so close and always having close games against them, it just means everything to beat them," Knapp said. "We've been preparing so hard for this moment and just to finally put it away and beat them our senior year is so special."

Bay (20-0-2) and Rocky River (21-0-1) are very familiar with each other.

The two sides came to a 1-1 draw at Bay back in September before the Pirates went on to claim the inaugural Cleveland West Conference title.

The only other time Bay's seniors experienced a win over the Pirates was their freshman year. They lost all three of the other matchups prior to their tie in September.

That matchup earlier this season was the first time the two had squared off since Rocky River won a penalty shootout to send them to the state championship against the Rockets last season.

"It's always been in the back of our mind, coming up short several years in a row, whether that's in the regular season or in the tournament like this," Emery Aschbrener said. "We were talking about how we lost in a penalty kick shootout last year, and just knowing that feeling, and coming from where I was in that moment, I knew, and our team knew that that was not a feeling that we ever wanted to feel again. From the beginning of the season, the first thing that we said was we needed to come out, we needed to beat this team and we needed to do anything we can to get that result. Playing them in the regular season, tying 1-1, we knew that this game was going to end up determining everything."

Rocky River controlled possession and had a couple of solid opportunities to score early on. That didn't stop Bay from putting the first points on the board when a corner kick ricocheted off of a defender right to Tessa Knapp's feet. With a pair of defenders closing in she took a shot from the top left side of the box that the keeper deflected but couldn't stop from going in.

The Rockets found themselves up 2-0 just 13 minutes into the game when Emery Aschenbrener's free kick bounced into the left corner of the goal from 45-yards out.

"I normally take set pieces. I take corner kicks. Me having that left foot, it's pretty critical to just have that kind of bending service," Aschbrener said. "I was looking for the back post. That's where I ended up finding so I'm just very happy with that result, and I'm very happy that my team ended up putting more on the board."

Addison Russell nearly put the Pirates on the board on two separates occasions. The first was a lefty shot from the top of the box that hit the crossbar and went straight down. The next was a header that bounced off of the football goalpost.

Russell's third opportunity was the charm as she buried a penalty kick with just under 14 minutes left in the half.

Six minutes later Maya Holmes hammered a shot attempt from Aschbrener home for another Rockets goal, but it was negated by an offsides call.

The Rockets were able to put shots on goal and make some dangerous runs early in the second half, but goalkeeper Caitlin Rose and the Pirate defense stood firm time and time again. And they needed to because they had a difficult time creating scoring opportunities of their own.

It was only a matter of time, however, before the Rockets were able to break through Rocky River's defense.

The Rockets found Knapp in the soft spot in the middle of the Rocky River defense. With her back to the goal she directed the pass to an open area in the middle of the field using her right foot. She turned, gathered the ball, made a move to the right to avoid a defender and then found the back of the net.

"I found space. I was one-v-one against a defender, and then I put the ball in the back of the net," Knapp said. "That really secured our lead, and then we just kept pushing from there."

Knapp wasn't finished though. With just over 15 minutes to play she beat a Pirate defender in a footrace to the ball. With a defender on her back she poked the ball with her right foot, but Rose stopped it. The ricochet, however, went right to her feet and she sidestepped a different defender before completing her hat-trick on a wide open net.

"We had a lot of opportunities... Thank you to my teammates for playing awesome balls so I could finish them," Knapp said. "My teammates mean everything to me, and I'm so proud of each and every one of them, and I have full confidence in each and every one. We're all a team together, and we couldn't be up to this point with any one of our pieces missing. Just working together is such an awesome connection we have, and being able to go to states with them is the best feeling."

The Rockets will take on the Highland Saturday at Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus after the Hornets took down Vandalia Butler 2-0 in the other state semifinal.