Host Grace Academy controlled the beginning and the end of Thursday’s high school girls’ soccer match against District 5-A/AA rival Boyd-Buchanan.
But in between, the Lady Bucs earned the edge.
Boyd-Buchanan rallied for a 2-1 victory that keeps coach Todd Ledbetter’s team undefeated in district play, and he hopes the mental toughness that carried his team to victory on Thursday will carry over into postseason success.
“I told them at the end of the game, you have to win games like this,” Ledbetter said. “In order to win titles, there’s going to be grind-out games. We need to know how to grind out a win and not fold under that pressure. And there was a lot of pressure tonight. It was every bit of a rivalry game.”
The Lady Bucs found themselves playing from behind after Danielle Shumaker gave Grace the early lead when she scored on a ball from Abigail Smith about 20 minutes into the match. Boyd-Buchanan struggled to match Grace’s intensity for a while, but Ledbetter’s team picked up its play toward the midpoint of the first half, and Emily Hauke equalized on assist from Logan Highfield with around 10 minutes left in the period.
“We started out strong,” Lady Golden Eagles coach Gretchen Hammel said. “I think we were dominating at the beginning, but then we lost some steam. Boyd got fired up, and we went flat for a while. We got caught out of position, and they scored a great goal.”
Both teams made adjustments for the second half, and Boyd-Buchanan’s paid off when Highfield scored an early goal off a ball from Emma Rogers to put the Lady Bucs up 2-1.
“Grace started out well with high pressure, and it caught us on our heels,” Ledbetter said. “It took us a couple of minutes to calm our nerves down, but I thought we responded well. The goal helped, and then we made some adjustments at halftime to open up some people, and then we got the second one. This was definitely a mental battle and an energy battle. The last few minutes of the second half really showed a lot of mental toughness for us to pull it out.”
Boyd-Buchanan’s lead was in jeopardy for most of the final 30 minutes, as Grace maintained its pressure and continued creating scoring opportunities. With around 15 minutes left to play, the Lady Bucs keeper had to punch away a Grace shot, and the Lady Golden Eagles had two more near-misses in the next three minutes.
Grace spent much of the match’s final two minutes inside or near the box, and had two close plays on corners in that span, but could never connect for an equalizer.
“We changed things up for the second half and kept the pressure up,” Hammel said. “We got some great chances, but sometimes things just don’t go your way. Sometimes, even though you might be getting those good chances, you just don’t quite have your composure. I think maybe we got a little too antsy. But I’m always proud of hard my team works, and I think we have a lot of positive things ahead of us this year.”
Ledbetter, whose team is now 5-2 overall and sitting atop the district standings at 4-0, credited his defense for making the plays to hold off Grace’s attack, especially in the final minutes.
“From the beginning of the game, our defense kept us in check,” he said. “(Our center back) Lindsey Hunkapiller did an outstanding job keeping our shape and our organization. They played fantastic for 80 minutes. Grace had everybody but the keeper in the box for those last two corners, but we held on.”
The loss drops the Lady Golden Eagles to 4-4 overall and 3-2 in 5-A/AA play.
(E-mail Jaime Barrett at jaimenbarrett@gmail.com)