Late call lifts De Queen over Lady Rams, 3-2

HOPE — Despite a strong effort by the Lakeside Lady Rams, De Queen will be taking the top seed from the 5A-South to next week’s Class 5A state soccer tournament at Valley View.

With a 2-2 tie going into the final 15 minutes, Tarin DeLong was called for allegedly pulling down a De Queen striker in the penalty box. The PK was good, giving the Lady Leopards the 3-2 win.

“I was getting the lineup together for a shootout,” said head coach Karrie Irwin, noting that she expected a shootout after over 20 minutes without either team scoring. “She was taking off, and they’re just shoulder-to-shoulder. Several times people had fallen down trying to stop and pull back, and this girl, she was running into the box … She goes to step back and stop the ball, and she falls. He calls it on Tarin.”

De Queen took the early lead by scoring in the first 10 minutes, but Trinity Walker picked up her first goal of the season about 12 minutes later to knot the score at 1-1.

“We started with a different formation,” Irwin said. “When we played them with a 2-3-2-3, it was

1-0, and when we went with a 4-3-3, we lost 5-0. We went back with a 2-3-2-3, and it wasn’t working. We rotated back, and they were great. We kept moving up and kept going strong.”

The Lady Leopards scored their second goal five minutes later to take a 2-1 lead into the break, and Abby Mahoney scored the equalizer in the

56th minute.

Irwin noted that she worked to make sure the team stayed fresh throughout the match.

“We started out real strong,” she said. “I kept subbing people in to keep them fresh. They never gave up, and they worked really hard as a team. They really played their hearts out.”

Lakeside will face 5A-Central No. 3 seed Sylvan Hills at 2 p.m. in the Class 5A tournament Thursday at Valley View.