Miami Trace welcomed the McClain Lady Tigers for the initial Frontier Athletic Conference match of the 2022 season Tuesday. The two teams battled back and forth before settling for a 2-2 tie.
McClain scored first with a goal by Kaitlyn Jett.
Miami Trace answered with a goal from Katherine Hines. The assist went to Gabby Thoroman.
The score was 1-1 at the end of the first half.
Payton Pryor scored to give McClain a 2-1 lead. No assist was credited for either McClain goal.
Jana Griffith scored the equalizer for the Lady Panthers with 2:12 to play in the game. The assist on that goal was by Keeley Ramirez.
Gabby Miller was in goal for Miami Trace, collecting 14 saves.
Miami Trace had 12 shots on goal. Shots for McClain were 18.
Kenzi Wise was the goalie for McClain with approximately 10 saves.
“We gave up one goal early, unfortunately,” Miami Trace head coach Chad Tolbert said. “We’ve done that one other time this year. We’ve been telling the girls, ‘stay in it, keep your heads up, fight through it.’ We’re progressing. We’re getting through to them. We are getting better. My assistant coach Joe (Webster) and I talked and we think McClain is better than last year.”
Miami Trace lost twice to McClain last season.
“We’re progressing,” Tolbert continued. “Yes, we are better than last year. But, it’s getting that mindset. Sports is more than having the skill, it’s also the mental aspect of it. We’re trying to get through to them that, ‘hey, if we give one up, let’s get it back.’ They showed that both times because we were down twice. I’m super proud of the girls. We’re young, overall. Most of the time, our starting lineup has either six or seven combination of freshman and sophomores. We’re learning as we go. When you’re playing a team with a lot of juniors and seniors, there’s a difference in physicality and speed.”
McClain head coach Tyler Carman said, “We played Logan Elm Saturday and won 2-0. We played Trace in 7-on-7 this summer, so we knew they were going to be tough. We knew we needed to stop Jana. She defensively uses her speed and has great ball skills. We were two minutes away. We took the lead there with eight or nine minutes left. We had the ball down at our end and (Griffith) broke and she’s hard to stop. She went down and made a bunch of us miss and finished.”
McClain is 1-0-1 with Tuesday’s result.
Miami Trace was 2-1-1 heading into Thursday’s home match against Hilllsboro.
Chris Hoppes is the sports editor for the Record-Herald in Washington C.H.
