Columbus girls deny Veterans’ finals bid

mbrown@sunmulti.com

For the second year in a row, Columbus High is playing for a GHSA state championship in girls soccer. That bid came at the expense of the Veterans High Lady Warhawks, a team riding not only a 12-game winning streak, but also a streak of 12 straight shutouts.

But Columbus was the team to beat Veterans prior to the long string of victories and the one to end it. The Lady Blue Devils scored in the first half and shut down the Lady Warhawks 1-0 Tuesday at Perry High School’s Herb St. John Stadium.

First-year head coach Whitney Wallis reflected afterwards on all that was accomplished in 2013 at Veterans, including a second-straight region championship and the push to the AAAA Final Four.

“The girls did a great job to make it to the Final Four,” she said. “That was beyond my wildest dreams when I took on this team. We had a young team, so we are looking forward to building on this success.”

Even just giving up one goal speaks at how it was defense that carried Veterans to the semifinals, especially when the team was on the better end of a 1-0 score in the Elite 8 against River Ridge. It took just as good an effort from Columbus to shut down the home team offense, which didn’t let the night go by without giving the Lady Devils some scares.

Like at 22:40 of the second half, when sweeper Jada Foor made one of her power-driven free kicks from close to midfield. She put the soccer ball in the penalty box, where Rebecca Dukes and Khayla Owens were there to challenge the goalkeeper. It was Columbus stopping the ball in time.

“I think maybe the nerves got to them a little bit,” said Wallis about the difference in this match and the previous 12. “They didn’t show up to play until maybe a third of the way through the first half. You have to play a whole game to win the game.”

For Columbus, it was a fifth straight shutout. Nikiay Comer scored the goal on a short-range attempt in the 24th minute.

“We couldn’t put anything together on our side of the field,” said Wallis. “That’s the way it goes.”

For the last 13 minutes, Veterans was trying as Breanna Gomez, Aspen Coggins and Erin Aler looked to set things up for the frontline teammates. With eight minutes on the clock, Columbus headed away a strong Coggins throw-in, and a couple of minutes later the visiting keeper beat Owens to the ball on the run by a split second.

Columbus snagged one more clutch save at 1:34 on Mahalia Laguines’ shot from Ashley Stepanek’s 50-50 win.

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