Signal Mountain forward Cadyn Huddleston pressures the Grace Christian goalie in the second half. Huddleston had the assist on Signal's goal.
photo by Greg Davick
A goal by Signal Mountain's Jimmy Johnson in the 17th minute was enough to secure a 1-0 Class A Spring Fling state semifinal win over Grace Christian of Franklin Wednesday afternoon in Murfreesboro. With the win, the Eagles advance to play Gatlinburg-Pittman in the Class A state championship game on Friday at 11 a.m. CST.
Signal Mountain head coach Richard Northcutt said it was a great game by both teams.
"We did some good stuff and they did some good stuff," he said after addressing his team. "It was a good game. They have a very strong team. We had some big guys in the back and that helped us alot. They got just about anything that was in the air."
Signal's goal came after junior Cadyn Huddleston crossed the ball to Johnson in front of the goal.
Grace Christian had 10 shots and had four corner kicks in the second half.
Signal goalkeeper Joseph Galea had four saves in 76 minutes of play. Galea come out for the last four minutes after a hard hit in the box.
This is Grace Christian's first appearance in the state tournament and had three 8th graders on the team.
"We haven't seen them and didn't know much about them," Northcutt said. "We just tried to do our thing. We had confidence that we could control the ball. It is like 10,000 degrees out here and the field is much different here. We had space and could really spread out. We talked a lot about that before coming."
Signal used the big field in the final minutes to run out the clock and secure the win.
GATLINBURG-PITTMAN 1 CSAS 0 The Patriots of CSAS's bid for a state title came up short Wednesday afternoon in their 1-0 loss to Gatlinburg-Pittman. Luis Ortiz scored an unassisted goal in the 66th minute to claim the win.
CSAS out shot its opponent 11-10. CSAS keeper Fisher Latham had four saves.