The McClain High School boys and girls soccer teams hosted rival Hillsbro on Thursday night. It was the boys team’s senior night as the girls still have a home game to play before the postseason. The first matchup saw the Lady Tigers and the Lady Indians and at the end, the Hillsboro girls ended up on top with a final of 4-1. In the boys game, the two teams fought tooth and nail for a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation.
In the girls game, the Lady Indians gave themselves some padding in the first period. Hope Tira put the Lady Indians on the board first with a goal just over five minutes into the game (34:35) and made it 1-0 in favor of Hillsboro. The next goal came with 14:20 to go in the game off the foot of Hillsboro’s Ellie Elmore to make it 2-0. McClain’s lone score on the night came from their top scorer Taylor Polley three minutes after the previous Hillsboro goal (11:35), as she was able to break through the Lady Indians’ defense and get a ball into the back of the net. But Hillsboro answered that goal with another one of their own before the halftime buzzer, another from Tira to bring the score to 3-1 going into the half. In the second half, there was only a single goal and it was from Lady Indians Madison Marsh to bring the game to its final of 4-1.
“I thought we came out flat to begin the game but eventually we got our offense rolling,” said Lady Indians Head Coach Jeremy Ratcliff after the game. “Today probably wasn’t one of our better efforts, but again, it’s a league win and we’ll take it.
“The Polley girls is always dangerous. You have to pay a lot of attention to her. You don’t want to let her get loose.
“At this point, we need a little help in the league standings and we have one more game to get ready for postseason play and that’s where we’re headed.”
The second game of the night saw a tightly contested game between the Tigers and Indians that ended in a 1-1 draw. In the first half, each team had their fair share of goal shots but not one of them found its mark and the game went into the half with a 0-0 score.
In the second, the Indians got onto the scoreboard first and fairly quick, scoring of a ball from Andrew Gunderman with 35:54 to go in the game. For a majority of the rest of the period the ball was just sent from one side of the field to another with neither team finding any advantage over the other. Then, with 2:49 to go in the game, the ball was heading towards Hillsboro’s goal and their goalkeeper came out to receive the ball. At the last second, Tiger Tyler Jackson jumped up and headed the ball over the keeper’s outreached hands and the ball a few times before it went across the goal line for the score making it 1-1. That was where the scoring ended as neother team was able to find another opening and the game ended in a 1-1 tie.
Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.
