PK contest favors Perry High girls
mbrown@sunmulti.com
After four matches in a row without a win, the Perry High girls soccer team completed a week of nothing but victories Friday at home. The Lady Panthers began the weekend with the most important triumph of their last three contests in a Region 2-AAAA shootout with West Laurens High.
As Laena Morgan, Dianna Sanchez and Ivey Johnson made three penalty kicks in a row (from spots 2 through 4 in the rotation), the visiting Raiders from Dexter missed three straight after converting on their opening try. That was enough to get the winning point, 2-1, for Perry to improve to 3-1 in region play.
During regulation time, the Lady Panthers needed to find at least a leveling goal, for it was West Laurens claiming an early 1-0 advantage. Morgan scored that point at 13:50 before halftime.
Perry was already playing without two defenders – Courtney Winston and Ansley Gentry – due to season-ending injuries. Courtney Herbert’s offense then received bad news just minutes after tying the Raiders.
At 11:20, Johnson went for a tie-breaking goal, but the West Laurens keeper blocked the ball. Still in play in the penalty box, junior forward Ashley Collins was injured in a collision with the keeper and did not return to the action.
As play resumed, Perry keeper Debbie Velazaquez, a senior, went to the top line of her penalty box to stop a West Laurens charge at 9:38. Johnson, at 5:50, took a hand-ball free kick that went into the arms of the opposing net-minder. Mary Jan Lollis, a senior in the back line, made numerous plays to stop Raider attacks and keep the match 1-1 for halftime.
Freshman Britney Wilson played a key role in the Lady Panther defense for the second half, including her deflection of a shot at 37:10 to create an easy stop for Velazquez. Freshman midfielder Mattie Hamilton was also all over the pitch sliding for loose soccer balls and blocking WL’s clearing kicks.
Velazquez saved a low free kick at 27:25. Perry controlled the ball over the next six minutes. Johnson made the keeper work when she got in front of a pass and sent her own lead into the penalty box (24:30). Hamilton earned a throw-in near the box, and passes going from Sanchez to Sarah Whiddon to Tiana Ortiz to Hamilton to Morgan led to a shot just wide at the 22-minute mark.
Morgan, Hamilton and Sanchez also forced the Raider keeper away from the net to stop their attack a minute later.
West Laurens captured the momentum for the next five minutes, but Keeley Winston and Lollis worked to prevent anything from getting close to Velazquez. Winston and Wilson were all over a break that had WL taking a corner kick at 12:35.
Not until under the 11-minute mark did the Lady Panthers gain some possession, but those were short-lived thanks to the Raider defense. Winston headed away a Raider corner at the seven-minute mark, and West Laurens had a shot hit a post at 3:32.
During overtime play, Perry’s only good shot on goal came from Sanchez, but her offering didn’t sail high enough to elude the keeper’s reach.
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