NEW MARKET – “We were fast and furious in the second half.”
Southmont girls soccer coach Roger Azar was spot-on in describing his team’s 4-0 win over North Montgomery, in Sagamore Conference and Montgomery County action.
After a scoreless first 40 minutes, the Mounties got three goals from freshman Molly Williams and another from senior Shakhia Burks to take the win, pick up a couple of Chase points and move their record to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the Sagamore.
“I told our girls at halftime that South was going to come after us, and they did,” Chargers coach Julie Hodges said. “The trouble is that all four of their goals were caused by a mistake we made. We compounded that by not doing enough offensively. We can’t hope for 0-0 games and then win on penalty kicks.”
North falls to 1-4 overall and 0-3 in the league.
Williams picked up her first goal of the match just over two minutes into the second half on an unassisted goal. She got another unassisted goal when she stole a pass and found the net five minutes later.
Burks got an assist from Jessie Bradley and scored her third goal of the season with 4:32 left in the match, and Williams finished her hat trick, giving her six goals on the season, with yet another unassisted goal with 2:00 left.
Molly is getting consistently better and better,” Azar said. “She has a low center of gravity and excellent speed. Watch Molly as we go along.”
Williams became the scoring threat when North assigned double defensive coverage on South leading scorer Jessica Hale.
“She came and said that North was doubling up on her,” Azar noted, “so I told her to drop back and become a passer.”
Hale, with 10 goals in the first five games, left the match early in the second half when she bumped heads with a North player. She was evaluated by the South medical staff and was held out of the rest of the contest. She will be further evaluated later.
“We walked through a lot of the first half,” Azar said. “We showed up in the second. This is a big rivalry game, and I thought our players put their hearts into it in that second half. We controlled play, especially in the midfield, and made North make some mistakes.”
Hodges note the mistakes on the scoring and added her concerns about the offense.
“We are only averaging about five shots a game,” she said. “We had better control of the ball tonight, but we are just passing the ball so much side to side instead of going into the zone and looking for a score. It’s been a few years that we have been without a true scoring striker, and with such a young team, we still have a lot of learning and adjusting to do. We have also been bitten by the injury bug – we lost another starter during the match, so we are down five starters right now, and with such a young team, we are making a lot of changes on the fly. I really want to note Courtney Bennett. She is a freshman who came in as an offensive player but has moved to defense for a while. When we lost another player tonight, she slid over to play a defensive position she has never played. She is just a hard worker, and a sign of what this team is – young, hard-working and learning.”
Chargers goal keeper Ella Smith faced 22 shots on goal, and the Mounties had a couple handfuls of close attacks that didn’t get a shot on net. South goal keeper Olivia Snapp got her clean sheet by stopping the three shots she faced.
Azar, who led the crowd in the national anthem when the PA system misfired, looked down the road for his team.
“We have plenty of work to do,” Azar said of his team, seven games into the season. “We are getting better defensively, and we keep working on holding the ball better. It really comes down to this: if we can stay healthy, we can compete with everyone on our schedule.”
Both squads are back in action Thursday.
The Chargers host Twin Lakes, while the Mounties travel to Danville for another conference match.
