Marble Falls girls soccer wins Midway Classic

The Marble Falls High School girls soccer team is the Waco Midway Classic tournament champions thanks to posting a 3-1 record Jan. 8-10.

“I think it’s a pretty big deal,” head coach Marisa Miller said. “That’s four games that you have to essentially win. You’re always battling playing that many games in a weekend. Injury is always a risk as well, and it just takes a lot of focus and a lot of drive to do that for four straight games in that amount of time, especially last year when we were kind of struggling with finishing. We struggled a little bit, especially in those tough games that it came down to one goal and for us to turn that around and be able to compete and win and have three shutouts, I think that speaks volumes about this team.” 

The Lady Mustangs (6-0-1) defeated Austin Kipp 4-1 in the championship.

Dulce Macias scored two goals, while Maddie Hardaway and Avrie Wallace each scored a goal. Suzie Perez had three assists.

“We had a great game,” Miller said. “We had lost to Austin Kipp last year 3-2, so we were ready. I think the girls were wanting to come back from that last year, and so they went out there and they just played very well, from our defense all the way up to up top. Everyone was putting in 100 percent the entire time, and it was pretty aggressive at times.”

She noted Old Man Winter sent “really bad wind,” so Marble Falls took it in the first half. That allowed the Lady Mustangs to score three goals. When they were going against the wind, “it was a lot harder to get on that side of the field.” 

“So we had to play a very defensive second half and prevented them from scoring,” the coach said. “They got their one goal in the first half.” 

Marble Falls shut out Fort Worth Wyatt 4-0 and Macias was named the player of the game thanks to scoring four goals and recording an assist. Other goals came from Giselle Hernandez, Cali Brydon, Wallace and Hardaway. Wallace’s goal came on a free kick while others were from a header on a corner kick and a goal from a cross or pass.

“We scored in several different ways,” Miller said. “So I think that spoke volumes about our offense. We were trying to switch things up.”

Marble Falls faced China Spring in a rematch of a 5-0 Lady Mustang win Jan. 2. This time the match ended in a scoreless tie.

“They played a really good defensive game, and we had a hard time getting through their defense because they did put a bunch of people in the back,” Miller said. “It looked like their goal was to stop us from scoring. And they did that well. So it was good to see a game like that, just a different style of play that I think we need to figure out how to get around whenever people put a lot on defense.” 

Junior Katie Terrell was named the player of the game.

“She played fantastic defense that contributed big to another shutout game,” Miller said.

The Lady Mustangs began the tournament with a 1-0 win against the J.J. Pearce junior varsity thanks to “a direct shot” by Perez.

“It was very competitive,” Miller said. “They had some good players. And for us it was kind of figuring out our formation a little bit because we had a couple people missing. So we were kind of settling in. We were competitive in the game in the second half. They were on our side of the field quite a bit more, but we defensively were shutting them down and preventing them from scoring.”

The coach gave a lot of credit to sophomore goalie Taylor Brydon, who was named the player of the game for her eight saves.

“I think that was probably our most competitive game that we’ve seen so far,” the coach said. “Last year we were kind of on the other side of it by losing by one, so it was nice to see. We didn’t have as many opportunities on goal, but we were able to finish rather than the other team.” 

Winning this tournament simply reaffirmed what Miller thought about this squad.

“I’ve known that this team has had this potential to be a team that is this competitive, that can go win tournaments, that can win games 8-0, that can compete at a high level and come out (with) a win,” she said. “Our attitude has changed a lot since last year. I think we’ve learned a lot from last season. I think we saw what we needed to do to compete at that level. And so I’ve known that they could. And so it’s good to see that all of them — the entire team — now has the confidence in seeing that potential that I’ve known that they’ve had all along.” 

Marble Falls welcomes Brownwood Friday, Jan. 16, with the varsity at 4 p.m. and the junior varsity to follow.