• El Dorado takes on Texarkana in softball.
EL DORADO - Carson Henry scored twice Tuesday as El Dorado rocked Texarkana 4-1 in girls soccer action at the El Dorado Soccer Complex. The Lady Wildcats improved to 5-1 in league play.
El Dorado's boys evened their conference record at 3-3 with a 4-0 shutout.
In the girls game, Henry scored two unassisted goals in the first half, at 32:40 and 24:00, to give the Lady Wildcats a 2-0 lead at the intermission.
The Lady Backs cut the deficit to 2-1 on Tamara Biddle’s goal off an assist by Autumn Underwood with 30:25 left in the second half. El Dorado dodged a bullet when Texarkana sailed a penalty kick high and then the defense, led by goalkeeper Aida Olmos held firm the rest
of the way.
“I think we were playing kickball. We weren’t playing our ball. Once we started playing the ball on the ground and playing possession ball, we do better. All the good goals came on possession ball,” said El Dorado coach Neville Matthews. “Other than that, we were playing kickball the whole time. I think the heat and this grass had a lot to do with it. We’d been playing on turf all season. This grass is a little tall and the heat kind of got to them.
“But, for the most part, it was a well-played game.”
The Lady Wildcats put the game away as Cross Hughes played a ball long to Caroline Humphreys, who powered through Texarkana’s keeper for the score with 21:28 remaining. Nearly two minutes later, Humphreys assisted on a goal by Angel Leveritt at the 19:38 mark.
That was all the offense El Dorado needed. Olmos had three saves in the first half and stoned Biddle on a oneon-none breakaway with a minute remaining.
“She bailed us out a couple times, like, three times in the first half, she bailed us out. She had a good game,” said Matthews. “It was tough luck on that one goal. They broke the defense down. There was nothing she could’ve done about that.”
Biddle proved to be a prickly thorn in the left side of El Dorado’s defense with her speed throughout the game.
“We went from playing a zone (defense) to start playing more of a man-to-man. I had to go man-to-man on (Biddle) because she was beating my right wingback on speed. She got loose a couple of times,” said Matthews. “I didn’t want to take one of our speedy players from the middle and compromise there. I could’ve matched her on speed with Landrey (Harrell) but I would’ve comprised the middle and I didn’t want to do that.”
In the boys game, Layne Henry was spotless in goal and four different Wildcats scored.
"Anytime you have four different kids scoring goals, it shows we distributed the ball evenly," said El Dorado coach Kris Borosvskis. "Juan Rivas, Chase Cottrell, Devin White and Nathan Owens did a great job of pitching the shutout, along with our goalkeeper Layne Henry.
"Augustine Reichhart's play at the center midfield, his distribution was much needed."
The Wildcats led 2-0 at the intermission. Luis Morfin opened the scoring with a blast from 25 yards out just 35 seconds into the match. Morfin assisted on the second goal, which was scored by Jesus Loredo.
Tyler Smith scored in the second half before Addison Miller finished off the scoring off an assist by Rivas.
"I thought we played much better," said Borosvskis. "It was important to come out and play after the big win we had over DeQueen last week. The intensity was high and we were able to possess better and able to develop the attack better."
El Dorado travels to Hot Springs on Friday.