Lady Tigers soccer battles Chillicothe to a draw

The McClain girls varsity soccer team entered Thursday’s game against Chillicothe with a 7-1 record, and their only loss was a 1-0 heartbreaker at Jackson.

The Lady Cavaliers entered the game with a 6-2 overall mark but were undefeated in the Frontier Athletic Conference and has one of the league’s premier players in Kiera Archer, who has already scored over 20 goals this season.

It would be as advertised: a hard-fought, evenly played match by both teams that ended in a 2-2 tie despite both teams having several opportunities at the end to win.

“Another hard-fought game both ways, Chillicothe again,” said McClain head coach Blain Bergstrom. “Two years in a row we’ve tied them but have never beaten them in our school’s history of girls playing soccer.

“Chillicothe hasn’t lost in the FAC this year, and that was their first tie. Just wish we could have gotten one more to go in.”

The first half was a defensive battle by both teams with the Lady Cavaliers scoring the only goal on an unassisted shot by Archer at the 29:55 mark. The Lady Tigers did have lots of chances to score goals in the opening half but just couldn’t get one to go.

“In the first half we really struggled, especially in the first 20 minutes, maybe because it being our third game of the week, or maybe it was just the mindset of it being against Chillicothe,” Bergstrom said.

McClain led off the game 1-1 at the 24:18 mark of the second period on a Paisley Pryor goal that was scored of a defection. Neither team was able to do much offensively over the next several minutes, until Archer netted her second goal of the game on an unbelievable and long shot with just 16:00 remaining in the match.

“Kiera (Archer) is considered probably the best player in our league, she’s really fast and just a great soccer player who has already scored 20 goals on the season in only seven games,” Bergstrom said. “We knew coming in she was good and we tried to do a lot of different things to stop her and at times we did that but she still got two on us.”

The Lady Tigers continued to play hard and was able to knot the game back up at 2-2 on Pryor’s second goal of the night with just 6:48 showing on the clock.

It looked like both teams would break the tie and win down the stretch but great saves by both keepers, especially Kenzie Wise (McClain), kept the score deadlocked to the final horn.

“Paisley (Pryor) hit a couple of good shots for us, the first one coming off one of their players and the second was just an excellent shot by her,” Bergstrom said .“She now has scored several goals on the year for us and is playing extremely well on top for us.

“Defensively, we worked very hard in the back. We were a little sluggish in the first half, but in the second half I thought they played really well back there.

“I appreciate my girls’ effort tonight, and they’re playing really hard for me right now,” Bergstrom continued. “They came off the field with a little frustration because they know they are so close. We’re 7-1-1 now on the season, and I definitely can’t complain about that.”

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