by RAFAEL MARQUEZ
Ending their postseason play, the Lady Rebels soccer team fell 3-2 to Leander’s Rouse Raiders in their post-season game at Shelton stadium, just as they were making their comeback for the night.
With a lot of midfield play, neither team could establish dominance during the game. Rouse was the first team to take a shot at the goal, and Hays quickly answered with a shot of its own, but neither shot met the net.
The teams took turns applying pressure on each other for most of the first half. Hays seemed to have some issues with taking and keeping control of the ball.
Both teams had breakaway attacks and several corner kicks but neither team was able to score. At one point, Rouse’s Madison Murphy was practically alone in front of the wide-open Hays goal. Murphy kicked the ball too hard and the ball ended up going over the horizontal post.
There was no score in the game until Rouse’s Katy Glenn cashed in a free kick with 3:24 left in the first half. The ball went over the wall, then just over the reach of the Hays’ goalie and into the net. At the end of the first half, the score was Hays 0, Rouse 1.
At the start of the second half, Hays’ Mila Bustos tied the score with a powerful kick that went past the Rouse goalie and met the net. Less than two minutes into the second half, the score was tied at 1.
Rouse, however, answered quickly. On a fast break, with some fancy footwork, Katy Glenn broke free of the Hays defense and kicked the ball right into the middle of the Hays goal. At the 37:39 mark of the second half, the score stood at Hays 1, Rouse 2.
Rouse continued its pressure on Hays, taking several shots that either went wide or over the Hays goal. The Hays players kept losing individual battles for the ball, which meant that possession was usually on the Rouse side of the field.
At the 22:06 mark, Rouse scored another goal – and it was an ugly one at that. The ball wobbled its way into the Hays goal, bringing the score to Hays 1, Rouse 3.
The Lady Rebels stepped up their attacks on the Rouse goal. During one of hard drive, Hays’ Jessica Cruz scored on a rebound after a Hays corner kick, bringing the score to its final mark – Hays 2, Rouse 3.
At the end of the game, Lady Rebel’s head coach Brent Holcomb said, “I feel like we didn’t quite find ourselves until the second half. It showed immediately in the second half when we came out and scored within the first two minutes.”
“This was not a lie down loss. [Rouse] is a really good team and they took us away from what we wanted to do and we couldn’t quite find ourselves. The [Hays] girls played extremely well and gave a hard fight. They [Hays] did a really great job,” Holcomb said.
The Lady Rebels finished the season 7-3-3, 8-1-3 in district play.
