Norwin makes adjustments to overcome pesky Latrobe

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 | 10:29 PM

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At one point Wednesday night, Norwin had seven girls ready to check into the game, and Latrobe had one.

They all gathered near the same spot on the sideline, waiting to take the field while giving a snapshot of the disparity in depth between the soccer teams.

Norwin leaned on its bench — and some position changes — to finally bat away the Wildcats for a 3-1 victory in a Section 1-4A game at Norwin Knights Stadium.

Norwin has 36 players on its roster. Latrobe has 19.

Still, it was a game for much longer than the Knights wanted.

Despite numerous near misses in the opening half, Norwin (5-2, 3-0) took a precarious 1-0 lead into intermission before the Wildcats (1-5, 1-2) tied it with just more than 14 minutes remaining.

A defensive lapse prompted Norwin coach Ashley DeVito to shuffle her lineup. The move revealed, among other things, maturity in a team that stretched its winning streak to four.

“The team we had a year ago would not have responded and recovered,” DeVito said. “There were 20 minutes of soccer that were not good. But the girls pulled through.”

Junior Nailah Schade moved to forward, and senior defender Alexa Kobus and junior midfielder Siena Ali slid to center back.

“We moved Neilah up top, and she was spectacular,” DeVito said. “We had trouble building out of the back. We made some substitutions, and the girls did their jobs.”

Sophomore Neeve Graham gave the Knights an early lead, dribbling at three defenders and sending a 25-yard shot off the crossbar that pinged off Latrobe senior goalkeeper Gianna Trunzo’s back and into the net.

Norwin pushed to add to its lead but kept coming up narrowly short. Freshman McKenzie Carpenter’s shot hit the crossbar late in the first half, and several other shots flirted with the cage.

Norwin had 12 shots on frame.

When the Knights were slow on a build-out about 25 minutes into the second half, Latrobe pounced to tie it 1-1.

Junior Emerson Shine crept up, picked off the ball deep in Norwin territory and went one-on-one with senior goalkeeper Rebecca Kostrobola, delivering a left-footed score for her sixth goal of the season.

The equalizer put Norwin into reset mode.

“Really, two goals they had were own goals,” Latrobe coach Jamie Campbell said. “We’re low on numbers and have a young team. But we were still in that game. Our second-half performance was much better.”

With neither team forcing offense in the second half, Norwin caught a break as its retooled lineup found rhythm.

Carpenter, who scored in Monday’s 1-0 win at Armstrong, sent a shot at Trunzo, who initially was in position to stop it. But the ball hopped away from the keeper and in for a 2-1 lead with 7:56 to play.

Ali sent a long cross in front, and Carpenter sidekicked it toward the net.

“I just wanted to make my parents and family proud; they were all here to watch me, my mom-mom and pap-pap (on both sides) and my uncles,” Carpenter said. “We weren’t connecting on passes, and we tried to skip levels. We wanted to tire them out with our passes.”

The Knights’ insurance score came in the 78th minute when sophomore Tatum Casper took on two defenders and chipped it over Trunzo for a 3-1 lead.

Five Norwin girls have two or more goals for the season.

“The kids are showing they are bigger than the moment,” DeVito said. “The moment is no longer bigger than them. We were better in the second half, but Latrobe is a team that fights.”

The win sets up a first-place matchup for Norwin with rival Penn-Trafford (3-2-1, 3-0) on Monday in Harrison City.

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Tags: Latrobe, Norwin