By CHARLIE HUST
Webster County’s soccer team battled to the end last Tuesday night in the school’s first appearance in the Second Region tournament held at Donley Field on the campus of Madisonville-North Hopkins High School.
After jumping on top 2-0 in the first half, Trigg County had to hold off a Lady Trojan comeback bid with a ‘free kick’ and a trio of spectacular saves from its goalie to secure the 3-2 win. It was Trigg County’s first-ever regional tourney victory.
It was all Trigg County (6-8-1) early in the match as the Lady Wildcats got a breakaway goal from Brittany Shafer at the 18:32 mark and then another goal just five minutes later for the quick 2-0 lead.
The momentum shifted from that point on as Webster went into attack mode and dominated the remainder of the contest.
WC junior Lexie Cole whistled a goal past keeper Natalie Crane when she alertly got her foot on a loose ball inside the box, trimming the lead to 2-1 just 22 seconds into the second half.
Trigg’s Jaycie Sittig then scored the eventual winning goal with 36:01 left in the match when awarded a ‘free kick’ 25-yards in front of the WCHS goal. Her boot sailed just out of the reach of goalkeeper Brittanie Smith into the right corner of the goal for a 3-1 lead.
The Lady Trojans went right back to work and got their second goal of the night from freshman Brooke Clark with 30:02 remaining in the match to close the score to 3-2.
While WC keeper Smith swatted away several Trigg shots, the Lady Trojans had three opportunities to find the net once again. But TCHS goalie Crane was equal to the task.
Crane batted away a shot from Cole that rebounded off a corner kick and then another shot from Flor Salazar. The Trigg goalie then made a fantastic save on a break-away by Cole and a one-on-one kick to her right. Crane made the diving stop with one hand, knocking the ball out of bounds with 11:05 remaining in the contest.
Crane’s heroics seemed to spark the Lady Wildcat offense as they went to work and controlled the ball and the clock for the next four minutes.
Webster had one more thrilling scoring opportunity late in the match. Once again it was Cole one-on-one with Crane as the WCHS junior chased down a lead pass from Chelsey McVay near the box in front of the net. Crane sprinted towards Cole and blocked the shot just as she booted the ball for the game-saving block.
“I think we made a statement tonight that Webster County soccer is a force to be reckoned with,” noted second-year head coach Troy Grant. “Once we started winning the ball at mid-field and attacking, we started playing our game. We had opportunities to tie the game and even win and I’m very, very proud of these young ladies.”