Lady Blues soccer falls to Old High in district

In just their second district game of the season, the Lady Blues soccer team took a hard 4-1 loss to one of the top teams in the region in the Old High Lady Coyotes last week.

The visiting Lady Coyotes have spent a number of weeks ranked in multiple top-25 polls, depending on which one you look at, and they showed why in their visit to Graham. Old High brought a fast offense Friday, Feb. 9 that put pressure on Graham and made things difficult to overcome.

However, the Lady Blues never quit in the game and showed flashes of their own talent, while understanding there’s always room for improvement.

“I think we’re getting close to where we truly want to be,” head coach Casey Weil said. “As far as going into the year, if you would have told me that we would have been this far right now, I would have been extremely pleased.”

The visitors didn’t waste much time in taking control of the game early on. About 10 minutes in, the Lady Coyotes got a bit of a breakaway goal as one of their players beat Graham’s defenders to the net.

Old High moved the ball well and kept the pressure on Graham’s back line for most of the first half. Not quite 20 minutes after their first goal, the visitors scored again on a corner kick that was deflected by goalkeeper Taylor Lauster, but the rebound found its way in for a 2-0 Old High lead.

The best chance Graham had to score came with just under three minutes to go in the half. Tara Dawson beat everyone down the field and even made a move past the goalie, but she was at a tough angle and her shot from the close side of the field missed wide left. The Lady Coyotes went into halftime with a 2-0 lead.

“I thought out of the back I thought that we played really well. (The Lady Coyotes) do a good job of creating numbers and pushing a lot of people forward…it kind of creates (mismatches) and puts us in a bind but I thought we did a good job adjusting,” Weil said.

Both teams scored early into the second half as Old High scored about a minute and a half into the final 40 minutes. About two minutes later, Sophie Schlieper broke past the defense on the far side of the field and fired a shot over the Old High goalkeeper into the close side of the net.

The goal broke the seal for the Lady Blues as they stayed in the game and trailed 3-1 at that point. Graham managed a few more shots in the second half than they did in the first but couldn’t push any more goals across.

Old High scored once more on a curved shot with about 15 minutes to play to make it 4-1.

The Lady Blues got close to another goal in the final minute but Schlieper’s shot missed high above the cross bar and the Lady Coyotes took the win.

“You want us to win every single game…that’s everybody’s goal,” Weil said. “But also as you go through the year, you want to see progress and progress from where we were to where we are now. …I think we can do a little bit better but…I never have to question their effort.”