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#8 Pinecrest vs Hoggard Monday, May 17th, 2004 John Williams Field, Southern Pines, NC |
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#8 Pinecrest vs Hoggard Monday, May 17th, 2004 John Williams Field, Southern Pines, NC |
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| A goal in the fourth minute by Wilmington Hoggard held up until the end, knocking the Pinecrest girls’ soccer team from the ranks of the undefeated and out of the state 4-A playoffs Monday night. The eighth-ranked Patriots finished the season 21-1 after being eliminated in the third round at home by the Vikings for the second year in a row. The Vikings, now 15-8-2, advance to play either Jacksonville or Ashley in an all-Mideastern Conference sectional final on Saturday. This match began with the Patriots displaying an edge in possession of the ball that they would maintain most of the way. But on Hoggard’s first trip into its offensive third of the field, Jenna Evans crossed a ball into the Patriot penalty area from the left. It deflected off a defender before Hillary Flowers put in the net at the far post making it 1-0. Stopper Jenny Fields and outside defender Lora Smith were two of those on the scene for the Patriots. “I got the deflection on the cross,” Fields said,” and then they flooded the box. I think I flicked it outside, but apparently not far enough. I don’t want to say there was nothing we could do about it, but I think they just caught us off guard.” Smith, who took two hard hits on her right knee in the second half and had to leave the game, said that Flowers was her mark. “She just came out of nowhere and I’m thinking, ‘Where did she come from?’” Smith said. “They knew what they were doing. They were really aggressive. They wanted it.” In last year’s meeting, it was a Flower’s corner kick that led to a goal in the first minute of the match. The Vikings scored a second goal in the eighth minute on the way to a 3-0 victory. This time, the Patriots were always within that one big play of getting even. Most of their serious threats came in the first half. In the 14th minute, Katie Fields broke into the left side of the Viking penalty area with the ball, but her shot flew over the goal. At the halfway mark of the period, Lauren Broderick led Fields with a chip over the defense that Viking goalkeeper Katrina Kezios raced out to scoop up just in time. In the 26th minute, Sara Cole controlled a long direct kick by Smith and delivered a hard shot from about 15-yards away, but right at Kezios. Just before the intermission, a Katie Field’s shot from about 25 yards out sailed tantalizingly, by what looked like inches, over the bar. Serious scoring chances by either side were few and far between in the second half. In the 50th minute, Cole crossed a ball to Stephanie Carter in the penalty box, but her shot too was high. In the 69th minute, Patriot goalkeeper Katelyn Burwell went high to grab a shot by the Vikings’ Anne Grainger. The Patriots spent most of the remainder of the match attacking in the Vikings half, but never seriously tested Kezios. Patriot assistant coach Hector Cuevas said that he thought the team played well except in finishing its attacks. “I think we easily had 70-75 per cent of the possession,” he said. “That last touch going toward the goal was killing us.” Before another good playoff crowd, the Patriots took 10 shots in the match to nine for the visitors. Each goalkeeper made a pair of saves. The Viking goal was only the eighth surrendered by the Patriots this season. Monday’s match was the first serious test for the Patriots since they defeated South View 4-1 on March 25. They outscored their 13 opponents 105-3 since that game. They were trying to make the fourth round of the playoffs for the first time in the 13-year history of the program. Cole, a junior outside midfielder, was asked what she thought made the Vikings tough. “They played a lot of one-touch ball,” she said. “They didn’t dribble a lot where somebody could get on them. By the time you got there, the ball was already gone. You had to stay on your mark and you couldn’t leave them.” Putting on a Patriot uniform for the last time were seniors Jenny Fields, Anne Brannon, DeAnna Jackson and Lisa Southerland. Pinecrest head coach Lorna Martin’s squad won its seventh straight conference championship this season (shared with Scotland in 2001). She said the Patriots had to make an early defensive adjustment to the Viking attack that included two forwards and five midfielders. “We had to drop somebody back, because it was too much to handle in the middle,” Martin said. “They’re a good team, but we had our chances. We controlled a lot of the game.” <-Previous 5-14-04 vs Lumberton (Second Round, State Tourn. W, 3-0) |