KARNS CITY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Before each match, the members of the Karns City girls soccer team say a prayer.
They remember those who made an impact on the program, those who have passed on.
People like Katie Shannon and Joe Meshanko. People who laid the first bricks in a fortress of soccer dominance at the school for nearly three decades.
“We started this little tradition back when I started,” said Gremlins’ coach Tracy Dailey. “We keep adding people as they pass, which is kind of sad. Before we take the field, we remember them because they set this foundation. They established this powerhouse of a program we have.”
History is a big thing at Karns City when it comes to soccer.
It has been very kind to the Gremlins, who won their 24th District 9 girls soccer championship in 28 years on Thursday in a 6-0 win over Brockway.
It was also the ninth title in the last 10 seasons.
“You hear Karns City soccer and you hear the calibre of team and the calibre of the program that it is,” said Dailey, who was a star for Karns City when she was Tracy Pollock and played in the early years of the program from 1994-97. “Looking back, it’s been strong the whole way up through. It’s the coaches. They really invest their time, and whenever you invest your time and you try to get these athletes to accept and love the sport, you draw them in and you keep them from there.”
Dailey was in on the ground floor, playing for Mary Shannon and Meshanko on those early strong Karns City teams.
(The 1995 Karns City Gremlins girls soccer team celebrates/submitted photo)
Back then, the Gremlins welcomed all comers and often played schools with much bigger enrollments.
“At that point, we played anybody,” Dailey said. “We played schools like Pine-Richland and Seneca Valley. We played Seneca Valley one of our first years in the playoffs. It was a blizzard and they beat us 5-0. But we were able to compete.”
Meshanko has a special place in Dailey’s heart.
He even set the course for the rest of her life.
“Joe Meshanko is how I met my husband,” said Dailey, who went on to play at Slippery Rock University. “He made a bet with me. He told me on Monday that I would be dating somebody by Friday. He said I’ll bet you 20 bucks that you’ll be wearing a football jersey Friday night.”
What Dailey didn’t know was that Meshanko already had someone in mind.
Jake Dailey.
“He called him and said, ‘Hey I have a player who really likes you.’” Tracy Dailey said.
“I gave him his 20 bucks because I was on the sideline as an athletic trainer Friday night and I was wearing a Jake Dailey jersey. The rest is history.”
Meshanko died in 2017 after a bout with cancer. Dailey spoke with her former coach, mentor — and matchmaker — not long before he died.
“I called him before he passed and it was just a great conversation,” Dailey said. “The thing is, he didn’t want to talk about being sick. He didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about soccer.”
Shannon, Meshanko and Jim Grenninger, who went on to coach the boys soccer team at Karns City to a slew of District 9 championships as well, laid much of the groundwork for the program that Dailey has coached since 2014.
Dailey sports a 141-31-1 record in her time with Gremlins as they head into a PIAA Class A first-round match against District 6 champ Penns Valley at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Phillipsburg High School.
Her teams have won eight of those 24 D9 titles.
(The 2022 Karns City Gremlins girls soccer team celebrates)
As a player, she was a star sweeper/midfielder on teams that also won district crowns and reached the PIAA semifinals.
She guided the Gremlins there as a coach in 2015.
After her senior year and two weeks before she was set to leave for Slippery Rock University, her teammate and one of her close friends, Katie Shannon, died in an automobile accident that was caused by an aneurysm.
Shannon had a liver transplant earlier in life.
“Katie Shannon passed away two weeks before we left for college and we all got together, the whole team, even though we had graduated,” Dailey said. “We were all very sad and trying to grieve and soccer didn’t matter at that point.”
“When I played, we were the best of friends,” Dailey added. “Trish Meshanko was my best friend. That makes a huge difference when you are playing with each other because you don’t want to let your friend down or your teammate.”
The same is true of the 2022 Karns City team.
Most of the players have grown up playing soccer together. They have formed deep bonds that go beyond the soccer pitch.
“I think all of us are very close with Tracy and it helps knowing she is there for us, in soccer and outside of it,” said senior Shali Slater. “It makes us want to work harder for her. We’re all really good friends. That’s super important because if you have a bad relationship with someone outside of soccer, that could carry over to your play on the field. If you’re not getting along, that disrupts the whole team.”
“We communicate well on the soccer field and away from it,” added senior Cece Morrow. “We communicate just walking through the hallways at school when we see each other. We know we have a friend there.”
Dailey has coached many of the players on this team since they were 8. Assistant coach Tyler Pollock has also coached many of them when they were younger.
The players on this team are very in tune with the history of the program.
They grew up going to matches and watching the star play before them.
Each have their own favorites.
“For me it was Hunter Dittman,” Morrow said. “I remember watching Hunter’s game whenever she had blood running out of her nose because she took one off the face. The parents were like, ‘That’s gonna be you some day.’ You gotta be the one who’s taking that one off the face for the team.”
Morrow took that to heart and aspired to be as tough as Dittman was.
Slater also looked up to Dittman and Haley Scherer.
She is also well aware that there may be little girls watching this team play who are big Shali Slater fans.
“It definitely makes me really proud to be a part of this team,” Slater said. “Knowing that there’s younger girls who are looking up to us, that makes us want to keep it going. We want to be better for them. We want to be good role models and inspiring for them.”
Slater started playing soccer much later than some of her teammates.
While Morrow was booting a soccer ball around at the age of 7 — and many others on the team much younger than that — Slater didn’t start playing until she was 12.
She caught up in a hurry and is now a key defender for the Gremlins.
Morrow has also shined as a forward, augmenting the stellar play of senior leading scorer McKenna Martin, senior Emma Dailey, who is second on the team in goals and leads the team in assists, and sophomore Lyrik Reed, who as emerged as another scoring threat.
This season has been a bit of an unusual one for Karns City, which started 0-3.
One of those losses was a 10-1 setback to Class 2A champion Clearfield.
“We climbed out of that hole,” Morrow said. “We went to work and we learned from the games like that. We got knocked down, but we got up and learned how this team was going to win.”
Dailey hasn’t been shy about putting her teams to the test, especially recently.
It has sometimes skewed the perception of the team.
“We lose five games and everyone is like, ‘What’s wrong with Karns City?’” Dailey said. “If you don’t face those challenges and overcome that adversity, you’re never gonna get better. I’m a firm believer in instilling life lesson for these girls. It’s not all roses out there. The way you overcome challenges is what’s going to make you who you are.”
