Lady Pioneers Venture to Western Part of Commonwealth

The Lady Pioneers were participants this weekend in the Marshall County Invitational. The tournament featured some of the better teams in the state and some of the best soccer facilities that I have seen in the Commonwealth. The outcomes of the games weren’t necessarily what the Lady Eeers were looking for as they went 1-2 on the weekend. They lost their first two games to state ranked Ohio County and Marshall County and battled back for a win against Lone Oak in tonight’s finale.

No comments about Friday night’s game as I took in the football game and the girls freshman game. The Lady Eers lost by a score of 4-1. It sounded like that they might have been a little flat after a five hour bus ride.

This morning’s game against Marshall County was interesting. SK allowed three first half goals while they failed to score. They came out in the second half and played much better. They scored a goal after a ball bounced around in the box was tapped in by Jillian in for the first SK goal. The Pioneers made things interesting as Jillian Russell made a cross to the far post that Kelsey Able knocked in with a head ball. This was probably the prettiest goals SK has scored all year. The Pioneers kept pressure on the Lady Marshals but failed to capitalize. The game really could have had a different outcome but there were just little things that the girls didn’t do that could have made a difference in the contest.

In the final game of the tourney, the Pioneers faced Lone Oak. (Per Chef John Meier from the Pioneer Grill, the school is from the Paducah area.) Lone Oak had been struggling in the tournament but came out with a strong effort against SK. The Pioneers did a good job of controlling the ball but couldn’t quite put their crosses in the right place in order to make the most from their scoring opportunities. SK led 1-0 at half-time after Krista Russell knocked a ball in from about 18 yards out. Bri Marti got the Pioneers second goal of the game when the Lady Pioneers put the cross at the 6 yard line that converted for the easy score. Lone Oak came back to get within one after #11 got behind the Pioneer defense for a breakaway goal. Krista Russell nailed an insurance goal shortly after Lone oak got their lone goal to seal the scoring for the night.

The Lady Eers got some quality games this weekend and got to play some teams that they don’t usually see. The other thing that the team got to see was some different officiating. One thing for certain, they don’t blow a lot of whistles “in these parts”.

Again, the soccer facilities were fantastic. Several of the girls and their families hung out in Miler Park which was just awesome. Kudos to Chef John for grilling his secret recipe burgers, metts and dogs at the park shelter.

The girls have just two regular season games left. They have senior night on Tuesday against Cooper and finish up with Highlands next week. They need to eliminate their periods of inconsistency and get better execution of some of the fundamentals if they are going to make a run in the districts and the region. They know what to do, they just need to go out and get it done.

Photos of today’s action are available at www.figphotos.com OR http://www.figsphotos.com/g/marshall_county_tourney The bright sky and the hard hitting made for some really good photo ops.