Lady Barons improve in Huntington tournament
The Brewton-Parker College women's soccer team showed signs of improvement
during a trip to Montgomery, Ala., last week to play two tournament games at
Huntingdon College.
The first game against Huntingdon on Thursday, Sept. 4, came after the Lady
Barons worked on shooting techniques that morning at the Montgomery YMCA soccer
fields.
Brewton-Parker came out with a strong attack to kick off the scoring with an
unassisted goal by sophomore Ashley Meyer of Alma, Ontario, snapping the Lady
Barons' three-game scoreless drought that began the season.
The Lady Barons continued their attacks looking to build a lead but fell victim
to successful counterattacks from the home team and came out on the short end of
a 5-1 score.
"Unfortunately, we just do not have the personnel to be strong up top, in the
middle and in the back at the same time," said Brewton-Parker coach Bill Glass.
"What kept us in the Huntingdon game was the heroics of our goalkeeper,
sophomore Michelle McRaven of Brunswick, who was called upon to make 29 saves.
We also got great play from backs Kendra Sewell (senior) of Canton, junior Kelly
Mosley of Appling and senior Anna Fry from Baldwin."
Glass said the issue with lack of balance on the team was brought home in the
Lady Barons' second tournament game against Clearwater Christian College on
Friday.
The Lady Barons again adopted an attacking style, mounted a series of creative
onslaughts led by junior Karen Taylor of Burlington, Ontario, which forced four
corner kicks. However, successful counter-attacks by the opposition led to a 3-0
deficit at the half.
In the second half, the Brewton-Parker attacks started to pay off as freshman
Brittany Evans of Louisville redirected a ball served in by sophomore Avianne
Tobias of Toco, Trinidad, for the Lady Barons' first goal of the contest.
"Avianne was a force to be reckoned with on offense and on defense," Glass said.
Shortly thereafter, Meyer put in an unassisted goal to make the score 3-2.
Sensing an opportunity for victory Brewton-Parker pushed up more aggressively
into the attack but once again fell prey to breakaways by the opponents and on
the short end of a 6-2 count.
"I was happy for our team this week," said Glass. "We have been playing
defensively up until now, which is not much fun, and this week we just decided
to get out there and go for it. While the game results were not what we wanted,
the players certainly got a lot of satisfaction putting the ball in the back of
the net three times."
A measure of the effectiveness of Brewton-Parker's attacks is that for the first
time this season the team actually had an advantage in corner kicks in a game,
6-4 over Clearwater Christian.
The Lady Barons traveled to Thomasville on Tuesday to play Thomas University,
with their next match Saturday at 1 p.m. against Wesleyan College in Macon.