Girls teams gearing up for postseason
The Calhoun and Gordon Central High School girls soccer teams are currently preparing for the upcoming playoffs after recently completing their respective Region schedules.
Both teams have completed their regular seasons and now have a week off to gas up and recharge for what both hope will be deep playoff runs.
CALHOUN
The Lady Yellow Jackets, led by head coach Taylor Sumrall, finish the regular season Friday night with a home game against Heritage and are hoping another victory will give them that much more momentum going into the postseason.
The girls are putting it altogether at just the right time, going unbeaten in their last five matches, with the playoffs right around the corner.
The girls are looking to end the regular season on a positive note and also hoping they can at least duplicate, if not better, last year when they advanced to the second round of the GHSA postseason before they were eliminated by Saint Pius X Catholic.
They finished second in Region 7-5A with a 4-1 record behind Blessed Trinity which, for the second consecutive year, won all five of its league games. And the Lady Titans really lapped the competition, winning its five league games by a combined 50-0 count.
Blessed Trinity was also the last squad that beat Calhoun going into Thursday night’s non-region road game at Armuchee. (Details of that game were not available at press time).
Since that setback to BT, the Lady Jackets have gone 4-0-1 with great defense, having allowed just three goals total in those five games.
They bounced back from that loss with two consecutive region wins, first defeating Woodland, 2-0, and then beating Hiram 5-1. Then they edged Coosa, 2-nil before they tied Southeast Whitfield, 1-1, Tuesday evening on Senior Night.
Forward Joanne Garcia, forward Jasmine Yarissa Rodriguez, forward Ashley Fuentes, midfielder/defender Erika Guzmen, forward Melany Sanchez, defender Kylie Speer, defender Anna Brannon, defender Kenadi Morgan, and Aaliyah Rivera are the seniors on the Calhoun girls soccer team who were recognized at Tuesday night’s match.
After Blessed Trinity and Calhoun, Cartersville finished third in Region 7 at 3-2 while Woodland will be the fourth seed after going 2-3.
Hiram was fifth at 1-4 and Woodland was last at 1-5.
GORDON CENTRAL
The Warriors will make their fourth 2A playoff appearance in five years with their fourth place finish in Region 7.
Gordon Central owned a 5-6 in the Region heading into Thursday night’s regular season closer at Coosa (Details were not available at press time).
A win would have put them at .500 in the Region and also put them on a two-game winning streak heading into next week’s spring break before the playoffs begin in less than two weeks.
But no matter what they did Thursday night, the Lady Warriors were not going to move up or down in the league regardless of the outcome because they were two games ahead of fifth-place Coosa going into the final match of the year and two games behind third-place Chattooga and weren’t going to catch the Indians with just one game left.
Gordon Central ended its home season Tuesday night with a thrilling 2-1 win over Pepperell in their second game this year that went to three sets of penalty kicks. Interestingly enough, the other three overtime game was their 5-4 win over Coosa about a month ago at Ratner Stadium.
For the blue-and-silver,heading into the postseason the key seems to be their ability to score. While goals are obviously the most important thing for any soccer team, the Gordon Central girls have been shut out in five of their six losses.
They have scored 21 goals this year but all of those came in seven games and they won five of those.
Model and Fannin County, both of which are top 10 state-ranked teams entered the final days of the 2022 campaign locked in a tight race and they played each other Friday evening in Rome for the Region championship.
Model, which is 10-0 and the last unbeaten team in the region, is 13-1-1 overall and ranked third in the state behind number one Lamar County and Fitzgerald.
Fannin County was 9-1 in the Region with that one loss coming to Model and the Lady Rebels were 10-1 overall, making them eighth in the state in the 2A division.
In fact, the four teams from Region 7-2A that will be in the playoffs were in the top 20 in the state rankings and that includes Gordon Central.
Dade County, which was 7-3 in the league with all those defeats coming to Model and Fannin County, was 14th as the Lady Trojans held a 9-41 record overall.
Gordon Central was ranked 19th in the state with all their setbacks coming to teams rated above them. The Warriors may have come closer than
anyone, though, to defeating Model, losing to the Lady Blue Devils 1-0 in the teams’ first matchup almost two months ago at Ratner Stadium. The second match between the schools saw Model take a 4-0 win.
Carlee Brock, Sophie Gaither, Debbie Herrera, and Kylie Morris are the Gordon Central senior players.
SONORAVILLE
With just three seniors on a 19-woman roster, the Phoenix have had some growing pains this year.
But they have played everyone in Region 6-3A tough and wanted to end the year Thursday night against Ringgold with some positive memories. (Details of that game were not available at press time).
The Lady Phoenix were 1-6 in the league going into that finale against Ringgold, but had not lost a region game by more than three goals and only twice where they beat by that point spread.
The Lady Phoenix have also lost two Region matches by a one-nothing count and tied Rockmart 1-1, but lost in penalty kicks. In short, they have an up-and-coming team that will be a force in the very near future.
The defense has been strong as they have surrendered just 16 goals in those seven Region games, but have managed just three goals on the offensive side.
Sophomore midfielder Charity Perez has been the team’s top offensive threay, having scored nine goals this year. She also has assisted on another giving her 19 points total in those two categories.
Freshman Lilian Kindl has also had an excellent rookie season, having four goals and two assists herself this year.
Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe went 7-1 to win the Region and Ringgold and Coahulla Creek began the week tied for second at 5-2. That meant that even though they aren’t going to make the playoffs, Sonoraville still entered its final game of the year having a say in the playoff race because if they defeated Ringgold Thursday night, then the Tigers would drop in the Region 6-3A standings.
North Murray and Murray County were next in the Region 6-3A standings, but needed to win their final games Thursday night to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Alexis Pena, Jasmine Goss, and Adaly Palmerin are the three Sonoraville senior players.