Lady Pioneers clipped at CHS

By DALE STUBBLEFIELD Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Hillary Templeton of the WCHS girls soccer team battles a Cookeville player for the ball during Tuesday afternoon’s game at Cookeville High School.

COOKEVILLE — The Lady Pioneer soccer team met up with Cookeville Tuesday, with both teams looking to keep their undefeated streaks in District 7-AAA play alive.

The Lady Cavaliers were considered one of the top teams in the district this year, and after Tuesday’s 2-0 victory over Warren County, they just might be.

“We knew going into tonight’s game, Cookeville had the best team in the district and they proved that tonight,” said coach Keith Hamilton. “The girls were back on their heels playing defense all night and we let Cookeville bring the game to us. Cookeville dominated on possession and played ‘keep-away’ all night, and just wore us down.”

The Lady Pioneers played a solid first half, but most of it was played by their defense.

Cookeville had an early opportunity to score 10 minutes into the game off a header from a corner kick, but the shot went over the net.

Warren County’s only shot in the first half came six minutes later when Hillary Templeton found an open piece of real estate but her shot sailed to the left of the net. Cookeville turned up the heat with 10 minutes left in the half and fired four shots, but Lady Pioneer goalie Erin Wolford stepped up and saved two of the four as the other shots sailed over the net to keep the game scoreless at the half.

The Lady Cavaliers opened the second half very aggressively on offense and it paid off.

Lauren Metts scored off of a diving save attempt from Wolford, when the ball deflected off of the WCHS keeper’s hands and Metts followed her shot to give Cookeville a 1-0 lead just two minutes into the half.

Warren County started to wear down as Cookeville ran the field at will. With 26 minutes left in the game Katherine Lynn hit the back off the net off of a header from a corner kick giving the Lady Cavaliers a 2-0 lead.

The Lady Pioneers tried to battle back and get some type of offense going but Cookeville would have nothing to do with it. The Lady Cavaliers pressured Warren County’s defense and never gave Warren County any opportunity to go on offense.

Cookeville improved to 3-0 in district play and the Lady Pioneers are now 2-1 and were scheduled to take on White County on Thursday.

“We had just three shots at goal tonight and never really made any type of run,” stated Hamilton. “We were looking to settle back and play defense and wait for them to make a mistake and counter. It worked for the most part but we found ourselves out of position so we never could make the counter attack work. We had too much standing around and didn’t go to the ball.

“Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for the girls. We got two wins in a row and tonight we hit a brick wall in a very good Cookeville team.”