EVENSVILLE, Tenn. — A late goal by junior Bella Martinez lifted Walker Valley to its third straight District 5-AAA regular season championship Thursday, at Rhea County.
"I’m very happy our girls found a way to win in a tough environment and claim home field advantage for next week," proclaimed head coach Austin Waddell after his Lady Mustangs pulled out a 1-0 shutout of the tough Lady Eagles.
"The matches we have with Rhea are always intense and physical, and tonight was a prime example of that.
"Rhea are a very hard team to compete against. They play hard and they have several talented players at every level of the field," he related.
"Rhea got the best of us on most stats, but at the end of the day we got the goal we needed and the shutout along with it."
Walker Valley (6-7-3, 3-0 District 5-AAA) will open the postseason by hosting No. 4 seed McMinn County (5-9-3, 0-3) Tuesday evening at "The MAC" in a district semifinal match. The Lady Mustangs shut out the Tribe 6-0 during their regular season match.
As the second-seed, Rhea County (8-7-2, 2-1) will entertain No. 3 Cleveland (4-7-4, 1-2) in a rematch of Tuesday's 3-0 Lady Eagle victory. The Lady Raiders closed out the regular season with a 2-1 win over McMinn Central Thursday.
If Walker Valley wins Tuesday's battle, it will host the district championship match Thursday against the Rhea/Cleveland victor.
The District 6-AAA Tournament will also open Tuesday with third-seeded Bradley Central (5-10-2, 1-2) traveling to Ooltewah (2-1) and top-seed Eat Hamilton (3-10-2, 3-0) hosting No. 4 seed Howard (4-7, 0-3).
The 6-AAA title match will also be Thursday at the home of the higher seed.
The top two teams from each district will meet in the Region 3 Tournament the following week.
After a scoreless battle for the first 75 minutes, Walker Valley finally broke through for the Thursday night's lone score.
"Our goal was scored with five minutes left in the game when (senior) Sadie Gibson had a throw in and threw the ball over two Rhea defenders' heads to Bella Martinez, who was running into the left side of the box, where she able to slot the ball past the Rhea keeper into the far right corner," explained Coach Waddell.
The Herd wrangler also gave credit for the victory to his defense.
"Our defense overall was very physical and stay disciplined when it seemed Rhea was going to break through at any point, especially in the second half.
"Izzy Argauer had an amazing game in goal and made several key saves to keep us in the game," he said of the junior goalkeeper who has more than 100 saves and four shutouts on the season.
"I’m hoping we can carry this momentum into Tuesdays district semifinal," Coach Waddell concluded."