The Lady Lions soccer team overcame a one-goal deficit to defeat the Fort Zumwalt North Lady Panthers last night in a Gateway Athletic Conference contest at Zumwalt North.
The Lady Panthers established a 1-0 lead just five minutes into the game off a goal from Paige Jones. But soon after the goal East started to challenge North.
Although the contest was played on both sides of the field, the Lady Lions had three shots on goal between the 27:52 mark and the 22:56 mark. East’s Courtney Staten scored with 18:13 left to play in the first half to tie up the score. Jessica Mincher put the ball in play on a corner kick and Staten took control of it and put it in the net.
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“It was an awesome game for us and we did a great job of creating chances,” Zumwalt East head coach Seth Wilber said after the 2-1 victory. “We had three or four really quality chances in the first half after they scored. We put one in on a corner (kick) and we missed one on a corner (kick). The girls did a great job of battling back. It’s something we pride ourselves on, we hate losing. We never quit.”
The Lady Lions continued to challenge the Lady Panthers for the rest of the first half, as they had five more shots on goal. Senior Hailey Rodgers scored the winning goal in the second half with 27:30 left to play in the contest. Rodgers was just a few yards away from the goal when she knocked the fall in.
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“It feels good to put the ball in,” Rodgers said.
East continued to control the flow of play for the rest of the contest and put three more shots on goal.
“It was a good game,” Zumwalt North head coach Eric Delabar said. “We played well against a good team. It was back and forth. They scored two and we scored one, and I thought it was a pretty good game.”
The Lady Lions improve to 9-7 overall and 2-1 in the GACN. The Lady Panthers drop to 4-8 overall and 2-2 in the league.