The East Hamilton girls soccer team earned a 5-0 shutout over Hixson in the Division I Region 4-2A Semifinals on Thursday night.
East Hamilton got off to the perfect start scoring under 10 minutes into the match. Sophomore Tenley Yates turned her defender, took a couple of positive touches before slotting her left-footed shot past the Hixson goalkeeper.
“We came out with a pretty high tempo,” East Hamilton Head Coach Carrie Hill said. “We executed some of the things we talked about – connecting in the final third and getting our heads up and not being frantic. The first goal kind of set our nerves at ease a little bit.”
The Hurricanes played calmly, but continued to press and create chances as junior captain Madison Buckner hit the crossbar off of a first time shot early in the half. The Lady Hurricanes thought they had taken a 2-0 lead through 8th grader Mia Moore, but that goal was disallowed via a late offside call.
East Hamilton eventually got their much deserved second goal through Sophomore Claire Moore. Junior captain Malia Drumeller dribbled down the right side before sending in a low cross that was tapped in by Moore.
Buckner would find the back of the net for East Hamilton three minutes into the second half as her shot from outside the box flew over the Hixson keeper’s head to make it 3-0.
Buckner would score again in the 51st minute as her late back post run was perfectly timed to tap in a cross from Yates to make it 4-0.
Six minutes later, East Hamilton would seal the match through freshman Iris Barnes who got the last touch in a big scramble in front of goal.
East Hamilton will play Sequatchie County on Thursday in the Region Final.
“We are just going to try to keep it simple at this point,” said Coach Hill. “It’s fine tuning some things, taking care of bodies, and making sure we are rested.”
Hixson should be proud of what they accomplished as they took forward to the 2020 season.
Scoring Summary
EH 2 3--5
H 0 0—0
1st Half
EH: Goal by Tenley Yates
EH: Goal by Claire Moore (assisted by Malia Drumeller)
2nd Half
EH: Goal by Madison Buckner
EH: Goal by Madison Buckner (assisted by Tenley Yates)
EH: Goal by Irish Barnes
Stats
Shots(on target) /Saves
EH: 24(13) / 0
H: 3(0) / 8