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#10 Pinecrest vs Hoke County Monday, April 21st, 2008 John Williams Field, Southern Pines, NC |
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(11-0-0) |
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(7-4-0) |
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#10 Pinecrest vs Hoke County Monday, April 21st, 2008 John Williams Field, Southern Pines, NC |
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(11-0-0) |
3
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0 |
(7-4-0) |
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| If you were looking for an exciting up and down the field affair, Monday's girls' soccer match between Pinecrest and Hoke County was not the place to be. "It was like a boring chess match," Patriot coach Larry Martin said after his team dodged the raindrops on the way to a 3-0 victory over the defensive-minded Bucks. The strategy of keeping nine or 10 people behind the ball served the visitors well as they kept the game scoreless until Beth Hieronymus scored for the heavily favored Patriots in the 32nd minute. Second-half goals by Morgan Maples and Latanya Cain sewed up the Patriots' 13th win in a row as they improved to 14-1-1 overall and 11-0 in the Mid-Southeastern Conference. They can clinch their 11th consecutive league title with a victory this evening at Jack Britt. Taking a page from the Ivory soap commercial of yore, Pinecrest spent 99 and 44/100ths of the match on the Hoke side of the field (well, almost). "It makes it difficult when everything is generated on one side of the field," Martin said of his squad's difficulty in finding the net. "There is not a lot of space to generate opportunities. They (Bucks) funneled in front of the goal and piled in there. "It's not a lot of fun and it's not very attractive. You just have to deal with it." Hoping to catch the Pinecrest defense napping, Hoke (13-5-1, 7-4) almost scored first. About midway through the first half, the Bucks' Shamia Brown was a fraction of a second late getting to a through ball at the top of the Patriot penalty area that was kicked away on a brave effort by goalkeeper Sarah Dejak. The pass for the first-half goal by Hieronymus came from Morgan Maples, who found the net on her own with about a 30-yard shot just 42 ticks of the clock into the second half. Hoke goalkeeper Kendra Orians helped keep things close. But, she had no chance on the 39th goal of the season by Cain in the 64th minute that was set up by a chip into the penalty box by Sarah White. The only Buck shot of the entire evening by Melany Bates put Dejak to the test with about five minutes to play. The shutout was the Patriots' 10th of the season. On Friday at 7 p.m., Pinecrest is scheduled to entertain Cary of the Tri-8 Conference in a match that was recently added to the schedule with a purpose in mind. The state 4-A playoff brackets have the first seed from the Mid-Southeastern Conference meeting the fourth place team from the Tri-8 in the first round. After the Imps play the 10th-ranked in 4-A Patriots, they will have met five of the top-10 teams in the state this season, including ranked league members Apex and Green Hope. They are 4-7 in conference action and 4-10 overall. "This gives us a chance to play a Tri-8 team and get a feel for that level of play," Martin said. "I think that's the toughest conference in the state. I'm glad we have this match at this point in the year. "I think it will be very interesting. I hope everybody will come out and watch it." Pinecrest and Cary have met only twice before, with the Imps prevailing 2-0 in 2000 and 1-0 in 2001. <-Previous 4-16-08 at Richmond County (W, 5-0) 4-23-08 at Jack Britt (W, 2-0) Next-> |