Westminster girls knock off Thompson with late goal
Published 3:01 pm Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Westminster at Oak Mountain took down Thompson by a final score of 3-2 on Tuesday, April 9, thanks to a late goal in the final seven minutes. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)
By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor
NORTH SHELBY – With 6:53 left to play, Westminster at Oak Mountain’s Morgan White lined up a corner kick looking to give the Knights the lead after giving up two unanswered goals to Thompson in a county soccer matchup on Tuesday, April 9.
White took her strides toward the ball, reared back and fired a curving ball right toward the goal. With a scrum in front, the ball eventually found its way past the keeper to not only give the Knights the lead at the time, but a 3-2 victory over the 7A team.
Sitting at 9-2-1 this season and as the No. 1 team in the 1A-3A Classification, the Knights have been on a roll with six wins in their last seven games.
Early in the matchup with the Warriors, who have now lost three games by one goal this season, it was an unfamiliar face that propelled the Knights.
Westminster’s A.K. Black not only scored the first goal of the game, but also put a second in the back of the net quickly after. Those two goals didn’t just put her team on top of Thompson 2-0, but marked her first two goals of the season.
Black put the first goal on the board 20 minutes into the contest and less than two minutes later, she found an open shot again and buried her second goal of the game to give Westminster a 2-0 lead midway through the opening period.
While both teams had a couple of chances over the final 18 minutes of the first half, neither really threatened to score, which led to a 2-0 deficit at the half for the Warriors.
In the second half, however, they came out with a different attitude.
Within the first seven minutes, Thompson had earned a corner kick and got several chances, including one great shot on goal.
All of those opportunities were starting to press Westminster’s back line and it seemed as if it was inevitable that the Warriors would score sooner rather than later.
With 29:27 left in the period, the Warriors finally made their chances count when Nicole Carter took a very deep shot and lofted it high in the air. Eventually, it came down at a difficult angle for the keeper to maintain and slid between the cross bar and keeper’s fingers to put Thompson’s first goal on the board.
Still up 2-1, Westminster got back to its first-half energy following that goal not wanting to allow an equalizer.
The Knights threatened for the next 15 minutes of the game with a couple of shots on goal, but it was Thompson that got the next goal.
Despite being outplayed on the offensive attack after their first goal, the Warriors took advantage of their best opportunity since that goal when Georgia Cousins was able to get into the box and fire the equalizer into the back of the net to tie the game 2-2 with 13:08.
But Westminster was still playing good soccer and continued to press offensively instead of play for the tie.
With 6:53 left, that decision paid off when the Knights earned the corner kick leading to the final goal from White to pull off the 3-2 victory.
Thompson is now 5-10-6 overall, but at 2-2 in area play, they Warriors have opportunities with area games against Hoover and Oak Mountain on the schedule.
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