Greenbrier East’s Ladies Soccer Team won their first game of the season against Oak Hill Tuesday, by a score of 5-1. The Spartans used a strong first half to take a big lead, and never looked back. Mallory Baker and Carley Midkiff each had two goals; Adrienne Dye added another.
Head Coach Courtney Hudnall, commenting after the game, noted, “It was our first game of the season. Not too bad. My keeper had some killer saves, I was very impressed with her. Impressed with the passing, the ball movement. There are some things we need to work on. Things like our corner kicks, finishing, not always just going forward with the ball, we have a habit of just wanting to go forward, instead of bringing it back. Set it back up. Positioning. I’m noticing what I thought some of my new kids knew, they are just a little inexperienced with the positions. We need to work on that.”
Hudnall also mentioned “marking up,” which she describes as “we select a player or two on the other team who is really good with the ball … not letting them turn around to face their goal with the ball, so whenever the ball is coming to them, we step to them to make them force the ball backwards. Early in the game we tell our kids what numbers to watch out for.”
Oak Hill coach Stan Wriston spoke after the game: “It’s our second game. We’ve been plagued with injuries so we were missing some key players. We did really well in the second half, just couldn’t finish. We had 14 shots on goal.” Wriston said of his team, “They’re a great bunch of girls. They put in a lot of work over the summer.”
He noted that Oak Hill has just moved from AAA to AA, but kept some of their AAA opponents on the schedule,” so the girls can play good quality teams like the Spartans. We play again this year, they come to see us.” That game will be played Sept. 29.
After an away game at Princeton Thursday, Aug. 25, the Lady Spartans are scheduled to play Cross Lanes Christian at home on Saturday the 27th, at 2 p.m. Another home game follows next Tuesday, the 30th, against James Monroe.
