BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
SMITHS STATION — The Lee-Scott Academy girls and boys soccer teams earned road wins over 1A-3A Area 3 rivals Glenwood School on April 14.
In those games, the No. 3 Lady Warriors (12-3, 5-0) raced out to an early lead and coasted 8-0 over the Lady Gators (5-7-1, 2-3), and the Warriors (6-8, 4-1) weathered a seesaw first half with three second-half goals in 13 minutes to defeat the Gators (5-9, 3-2) 5-3.
With the wins, both Lee-Scott teams officially clinched first-place finishes in area play and will later host the first round of the 1A-3A playoffs.
Girls game
After defeating the Lady Gators 6-0 at home on March 5, the Lady Warriors looked to prove that scoreline wasn’t a fluke during the return leg to Smiths Station.
Star freshman forward A.J. Spillman proved her team right, leading the charge for Lee-Scott with six goals, and Ella Williams and Charlee Huddleston added a goal apiece.
According to assistant head coach Missy Martin, who was filling in for head coach Eric Faison, the performance was the culmination of a weeks-long effort to get the Lady Warriors to play as a unit.
“They came in and just hit everything we tried to practice yesterday and last week to prepare for this game knowing that if we win, we’re area champs,” Martin said. “It’s just fantastic watching them figure out how to play as a team and what the new dynamics are, and to see just how much stronger and faster all of these girls are from last year.”
As one of the centerpieces of last year’s championship team, Spillman said this past offseason was about improving her off-ball movement and positioning.
Although those improvements have taken her individual game up a notch, there were early speed bumps putting everything together as a team.
With the playoffs now right around the corner, it appears Lee-Scott has rounded into form.
“We have so much individual talent, but we wanted to know how to put it together on the field,” Spillman said. “It always feels good beating Glenwood. It’s just a joy. I feel like we’ve played harder teams, but beating them always makes us so happy. And knowing that we can put some goals away too, it’s an awesome feeling.”
Spillman struck first in the seventh minute, curling a clinical right-footed shot from just outside the box that dropped in under the crossbar before doubling her tally in the 12th minute.
Williams added to the advantage with 11 minutes to play before halftime, and Spillman completed her first-half hat trick six minutes later.
LSA offered no reprieve in the second half. Spillman netted her fourth less than two minutes after the restart, again striking from outside the box.
She added her fifth goal roughly 18 minutes later, breaking in behind the defense on a direct run before beating the goalkeeper.
After that, Huddleston joined in on the scoring with 12 minutes left after her long-range direct free kick slipped through the goalkeeper’s hands.
Spillman then capped her performance off just one minute after Huddleston’s goal by running onto another through ball to finish at point-blank range.
Boys game
While the Lady Warriors wanted to confirm their dominance, the Warriors needed to prove themselves after losing a 3-2 double overtime heartbreaker at home to Glenwood on March 5.
This time, they got the job done after Emerson Myers and James Pace both recorded braces for the Lee-Scott, while Clay Sauerwine tallied a brace of his own for the Gators.
Lee-Scott head boys’ soccer coach Moses Ogunleye was all smiles after defeating the Gators with a now-healthy squad.
“I’ve told the boys we can literally go toe-to-toe with anybody, and that’s with all due respect to whoever we’re playing,” Ogunleye said. “Each game, we have a theme. Today was ‘believe.’ We just had to believe in each other and execute. What we did right there, we just executed to perfection. It’s really what we’ve been trying to work on all season, and today, everything just clicked perfectly.”
While the result was a collective team effort, Myers’ pace, strength and clinical finishing ability effectively won the game for the Warriors. The senior forward’s two second-half goals were timely, with his first giving Lee-Scott the lead and his second providing breathing room.
“We looked at each other and said ‘we’re good,’ because right after a goal, we have a five minute drill, which is where we execute everything we do,” Myers said. “This is my favorite game of the year to play in. It’s awesome, especially since we lost the last game in overtime. It’s just an amazing feeling with this team, we’ve been together for so long.”
Graham Spillman opened the scoring 8:26 into the match, timing his run perfectly to strike a lofted through ball on the half volley and into the top right corner to put the Warriors ahead 1-0.
That lead didn’t last long as Leland Hughes equalized for the Gators around the midway point of the first half, poking home a deflected shot that fell to him inside the box to make it 1-1.
Lee-Scott reclaimed the lead seven minutes later when James Pace chased down a long ball from the goalkeeper that bounced through the heart of the Glenwood defense. Pace then beat the onrushing keeper by lifting the ball over him to put the Warriors ahead 2-1.
However, Glenwood responded with just over five minutes left before the break. Clay Sauerwine dragged a patient run along the back line before thumping a through ball past a flat-footed goalkeeper to level the score at 2-2.
After halftime, the Warriors seized control of the game 10 minutes following the restart after Myers latched onto a booming clearance from his goalkeeper, fought off a Glenwood defender and buried a clinical finish into the bottom right corner from close range.
Having put Lee-Scott up 3-2, Myers netted his brace with 18 minutes left to play after meeting a high, looping cross into the box and volleying home the ball into the bottom right corner to extend the lead
With the Warriors now up 4-2, Pace added to the cushion just one minute later, splitting the back line on a perfectly weighted through ball and slotting a shot from near the edge of the box into the bottom left corner to make it 5-2.
Despite being down by three goals, the Gators refused to pack it in. Sauerwine pulled one back for Glenwood with 15 minutes to play, fighting through a pack of Lee-Scott defenders to reach a headed pass and curling a left-footed finish from the edge of the box into the far corner to cut the deficit to 5-3.
By that point though, the deficit was still too large to overcome with the amount of time remaining, and the Warriors controlled the pace of play from there to seal the victory.
