It was an inter-county match up on Monday night as Fairfield High School boys and girls soccer teams hosted the McClain Tigers and Lady Tigers. The boys game was first on the night and ended with McClain on top with a 1-0 score and in the girls game it was a final of 6-3 with Fairfield girls being the victor.
In the boys game, there were quite a few shots-on-goal by both team, but the teams’ two goalies made sure most of them couldn’t find their mark. The lone score in the game came from Brock Dean in the first half.
“It was a win, but it was an ugly win,” said McClain Head Coach Jon Chamblin after the 1-0 win. “I don’t know if we had first game jitters or what, but there were a lot of kids out of position. We have a lot of new faces this season. We lost a lot of good offensive threats last year so our offense hasn’t got clicking quite yet. We’ll work to get there. We have a lot of team speed so that helps out. Overall, we have a lot of athletes but not a lot of skilled soccer players like we should have.
“I was happy with the defensive shut out today. We have a couple new faces back there and they played well. Really happy with our defense this year.”
“We’re inexperienced this season but this was the first time this season that we really had the whole team together on the field,” said Fairfield’s head Coach Jacob Alexander after the close loss. “For going 1-0 with a quality team like Greenfield, it says a lot about the character of this team and I’m really excited about the season now. Zach Drabik, our goalkeepr saved us many times back in goal tonight. He had over ten saves today. From last year to this year, it’s amazing the difference in our defense. Last year this game was around 11-1 and to come back a year later and go 1-0 with them says a lot about the guys and their training in the offseason.”
For the girls game, there were quite a few more goals scord with a final of 6-3.
At the start of the first half, it looked to be all Fairfield with three goals. The first goal came from the foot of Shay Turner just under four minutes into the game. The next goal came from Carly Arnold (29:01). The Lady Lions capped off their scoring in the first half with a goal from Rylie Mckinley with 20:10 to go until halftime.
It took a while for the Lady Tiger to get going but with 19:20 to go, Taylor Polley was able to find the back of the net with a ball to put her team on the board and the score was 3-1. Polley scored again before the halftime buzzer with another goal at 16:52 to bring the score to 3-2 going into the half.
The second half once again belonged to the Fairfield girls as they scored another three goals. Both Turner and Arnold netted their second goals at 25:49 and 14:10 respectively, and Abigail Newkirk added a goal of her own with 16:45 to go in the game.
Taylor Polley got the hat-trick for the night and scored her third goal with 13:00 to go in the game but McClain failed to score again and the game was called early because of darkness with a final score of 6-3.
“We kind of had a slow start out just because (Polley) is kind of dangerous,” said Fairfield Lady Lions Head Coach Paij Shelton. “
Once we adjusted in the second half, and figured out how to shut her down and capitalize on our shots, then we started making stuff happen. Second half was definitely our better half. There was strong defense today for us especially in the second half. The girls did a great job of adjusting to what we told them to do. Overall, it was a good effective win.”
Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.
