Maddie Martin had been longing for a shutout in the early season, and her Wylie girls soccer team finally nabbed one.
Kaylee Richardson scored two goals, and Avery Anders made six saves as the Lady Bulldogs silenced Odessa High 2-0 in a non-district game Tuesday at Sandifer Stadium.
“I was really proud of them,” said Martin, a 2013 Wylie graduate. “We’ve been emphasizing shut out, shut out, shut out, and this is the first time we’ve pulled it off against a really good 6A team.”
Wylie improved to 2-2-0, after going 1-2-0 at the Joshua tournament last week.
The Bulldogs got the only goal they needed against OHS (0-1) when Richardson scored off a breakaway with 28 minutes left in the first half. It came off a long pass from Maci Hanson, as the Lady Bulldogs nearly covered the length of the field to score after foiling a Lady Bronchos’ attack.
“It definitely helps to be the first to score and be up at halftime,” Martin said. “But the biggest point at halftime was to keep the shutout. If we got another goal, great. Obviously, we’re going to work to keep creating good chances, but the biggest thing was keeping the shutout.”
Anders made a nice save early in the second half, before Richardson got her second goal – this one off a pass from Brylee Ross with 6:30 left in the game.
Wylie returns 16 players, including eight starters, from a 7-14-1 team that last finished fourth in district last season with a 4-7 mark. Amarillo High beat the Lady Bulldogs 4-1 in the first round of the playoffs.
“We’re returning quite a few, and we’ve got a couple of new move-ins, who are really talented and are helping us out,” Martin said. “I think we’ll compete really well in our district. Abilene High being in our district makes it trickier, of course, but I still think we’ll do well.”
District rivals Lubbock Coronado and Lubbock-Cooper were both regional semifinalist last year, while Lubbock Monterey nabbed the league’s other playoff spot.
Martin, who took over the Wylie program the 2020-21 season, missed all of district and postseason play last season after having her first child.
She gave birth to a boy on Feb. 2 – three days before the district opener.
Gabby Symmank, now an assistant at Prosper Rock Hill for former Wylie head coach Manuel Cordova, coached the Lady Bulldogs while Martin was away.
“It was really hard to be away from the girls,” Martin said. “We were really young last year, so it was already a learning year.”
Wylie plays Granbury in a non-district game Friday in Granbury.
Lady Roos stymie Cooper
Weatherford beat Cooper 4-1 in a non-district game at the Shotwell auxiliary field.
Cooper opened the season with a 5-1 loss against San Angelo Central on Friday in Abilene.
The Cooper and Abilene High soccer teams are playing their home games at either the Shotwell auxiliary field or their own home field this season while Shotwell Stadium is undergoing renovations to its press box.
Cooper plays Joshua on Thursday at the Richland Royals Winter Blast in North Richland Hills.
BOYS
Coogs tie up Bronchos
J.R. Perez got a late goal to help Cooper tie up Odessa High 1-1 in the Cougars’ season opener at the Shotwell auxiliary field.
It was a scoreless game until the Bronchos found the back of the next late in the second half.
It appeared OHS, which possessed the ball a majority of the game, much of it on the attack, would squeak out a 1-0 victory before Perez scored off a pass from Guillermo Garcia in the waning minutes.
“I thought we played well,” Cooper coach Lalo Munoz said. “We were a little rusty since we hadn’t played in a couple of weeks. Defensively, we did great staying organized, We didn’t possess (the ball) as we well as we wanted, but it was great being able to battle back and score the equalizing goal at the end of the game.”
Cooper plays Saginaw on Thursday on the opening day of the Saginaw tournament.
Wylie, Aledo play to draw
Wylie bounce back from a 3-0 loss at San Angelo Central on Friday to tie Aledo 1-1 in a non-district game at Sandifer Stadium.
The Bulldogs (0-1-1) play Life Waxahachie at 5 p.m. Thursday in Burleson at the Joshua tournament.
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