By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Western Alamance scored the final three goals in a 3-1 victory against visiting Eastern Alamance to clinch the Central 3-A Conference title Friday night.
Abigail Lush and Callie Athas had the second-half goals for the Warriors (16-0-2 overall, 9-0-1 Central 3-A Conference), which entered this week with two games remaining before the state playoffs.
The Eastern/Western clash was a rematch from last month’s 0-0 tie.
“We don’t want them to let the size of the game affect how they play,” Western coach Camden Brooks said of his players.
Eastern’s Maddy Loranger opened the scoring before Western’s Emma Gryniewski tied the game before halftime.
“What I’ve been stressing is if we make mistakes, we have to get heads up,” Brooks said. “The way they responded was awesome.”
Athas scored with slightly more than 15 minutes left, and the Warriors were solid the rest of the way protecting the two-goal cushion.
The defending conference and state champion Eagles were without leading scorer Abby Brinker, who was required to sit out a game after accumulating five yellow cards during the season.
“We gave it a go,” Eastern coach Shawn Gibbs said. “(Western) played a lot better this time around than the first game.”
Gibbs said the Eagles altered some formations during the game to try to create better sequences.
More soccer …
- Second-place Eastern Alamance (9-6-1, 7-3-1) bounced back to win 8-1 at fifth-place Southern Alamance on Monday night.
- Williams and host Orange tied 2-2 on Friday night, and then sixth-place Williams suffered a 5-3 loss Monday at Cedar Ridge. Holden Hall had two goals in the Cedar Ridge game.
- Bailey Cook racked up four goals and Adalynn House had two goals as Burlington Christian Academy blitzed The Burlington School 7-0 last week to end the regular season. That put the Royals’ record at 13-4 and landed the team two byes in the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association Class 2-A state playoffs.
BCA will be home Saturday against the winner of Thursday’s game between TBS (6-8) and Hickory Christian (10-4). TBS defeated Carolina Friends 2-0 in the first round on goals from Alex Eguren on Tuesday.
Source: https://alamancenews.com/western-girls-stay-unbeaten-clinch-league-soccer-title/
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