Burnet girls soccer loses to Long Creek
CAPTION: Erica Flores played well against New Braunfels Long Creek in her final match in a Lady Dawgs uniform. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography
The Burnet High School girls soccer team lost to New Braunfels Long Creek 5-2 March 20 in the first round of the Class 4A Division I playoffs.
The Lady Dawgs end their season with a 19-6-1 overall record, 13-1 in District 25-4A play to finish as the runners-up.
Trailing 3-0 to begin the second half, the Lady Dawgs began making a comeback. Hallie Poe scored a goal from a corner kick thanks to an assist from Savannah Griffin to make the score 3-1.
Then the Lady Dragons (11-7-2, 6-6 District 26-4A fourth place) scored on a penalty kick. Burnet’s Brook Oliva had an unassisted goal to trim the deficit 4-2.
“There was 15 minutes left, and I thought, ‘We have plenty of time,'” Burnet head coach Doug Ketcham recalled. “We only need two more goals. I think we missed several shots, two that would have kept us in the game.”
Burnet had to dig itself out of a 3-0 deficit after the first half.
“I thought that they probably had a little better skill than we did overall and probably a little more speed,” the coach said. “But it’s something that we hadn’t talked about or saw on film. So everything they did in the first half is everything we had game planned for them not to be able to do. And they were still able to do it.”
The Lady Dawgs were prepared for the Lady Dragons’ top players and yet one was still able to score the first goal of the contest.
“We made a game plan for her to be fast,” Ketcham said. “She was and we just didn’t do what we were supposed to. And then the next two goals were free kicks that we had covered. We just didn’t play well that first 40 minutes.”
He commended the play of Burnet goalie Kayleigh Briggs.
“She stopped a (penalty kick), a really good one and we just didn’t follow behind, and they ended up scoring off of it anyway,” the coach said.
Ketcham, who completed his first year as the Lady Dawgs head coach, called it “a rollercoaster.”
“We were up and down a lot because of injuries, and I think that really took a toll on us not being able to get as far as we wanted to go,” he said. “But I had a great time. The girls are fantastic and looking forward to year two.”
The program says good-bye to Erica Flores Bella Medina, Yessi Flores, Oliva and Poe.
“They couldn’t have been any better,” Ketcham said. “They were great. They were great players, obviously, and great people. We got along off the field. It’s always rough when you graduate them, then you pretty much lose contact for the most part. So that’s the part that’ll be the hardest. Hopefully they feel like they accomplished quite a bit.”
CAPTION: Hallie Poe did all she could to put the ball in the back of the net. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography
