Lady Mustangs advance to district finals

WAVERLY — Once again, the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs are going to play for a district championship.

On Tuesday night, the Lady Mustangs (10-5-2) defeated the North Adams Lady Green Devils (4-11-3) by a 2-0 score, scoring one goal in each half of the physical contest between the two teams from the Southern Hills Athletic Conference at Waverly.

“This was one of those classic SHAC tournament games where you've played these teams year in year out, and you know no matter what the records are, they are going to be close games,” Lynchburg-Clay head coach Dennis West said. “They always are when we play Morgan [Hendrickson, NAHS head coach] and that North Adams group.

“They're young, but she had them playing tonight. Their keeper, Bella [Gray], is just awesome for a freshman. They played much better today than they did when we faced them earlier in the year, and they're just really good and getting better.”

Lynchburg-Clay's first goal was scored with 30:51 left in the first half as Miranda Smith scored off a goal from 40 yards out for the 1-0 lead.

The second goal for LCHS was scored by Caitlyn Collins with the assist from Addie Downing at the 26:05 mark for a 2-0 advantage.

“Our corners have been pretty good all year, and Caitlyn finished on that one, and Miranda has been all year,” West said. “She's been good at getting our first goal, and a lot of them have been similar to that shot she took down here in the beginning of the game, and we just played well enough to win. We'll have to get better for Thursday night, but at least we got our legs back under us, I hope.”

At keeper for the shutout win was Allie Waits.

The win creates a rematch of the regional semifinal from a year ago, as the Lady Mustangs will face Highland County and SHAC counterpart, the Fairfield Lady Lions, on Thursday, Oct. 24 at Waverly as both programs won a district championship a season ago. LCHS has won five consecutive district championships.

Earlier this season (Oct. 4) LCHS defeated Fairfield, 4-0, and they won the regional semifinal game last postseason against the Lady Lions.

“Our girls, it's our first game since we played a week ago this past Saturday, and it looked that way,” West said. “We've been practicing on our turf inside building, but it didn't translate well out here tonight. A lot of just balls with the wrong pace on them, and just wasted a lot of opportunities with not hitting the ball well, just playing it like we were playing in grass knee-high or something. That slowed us down a little bit.

“Tournament games, everything gets tighter. You might beat a team 6-0 in a season. You get a tournament game, everything gets a whole lot closer. It just does. We talk to the kids about that every year. We start practicing penalty kicks two, three weeks before the end of the season, because you get into these kind of games, and all of a sudden you're in a situation where you're shooting PKs, and you've got to be ready for it. That just goes with the tournament setting. Everything gets tighter.”

BOX SCORE
NAHS 0 0 — 0
LCHS 1 1 — 2

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