Lady Blues start district with 4-0 win over Mineral Wells

It didn’t take long for the Graham Lady Blues to assert their dominance Monday, Feb 5 in their district-opening win over the Mineral Wells Lady Rams.

The Lady Blues did all their scoring in the first half as they went onto win 4-0 and start their district play with a 1-0 record. The offense looked strong and the defense held firm all game as Graham finessed its way to the win.

As the game got underway, the Lady Blues went to work doing what they’ve done all season: control the ball and score goals. A little more than three minutes into the game, Graham got on the board first with a goal from sophomore Tara Dawson.

Junior Olivia Pettus worked her way past the defense and moved inside towards the goal. She crossed a short pass through the defenders to an open Dawson just a few feet away from the goal, and she nailed the shot to put her team up 1-0.

About 16 minutes later, the Lady Blues scored again in almost the exact same way. This time, the pass came from senior Sophie Schlieper on the right side to Dawson, who found herself again open in front of the goal for an easy tap-in shot to go up 2-0.

As the game progressed, Graham continued to get shots on goal and made the Mineral Wells goalkeeper work. The teams spent most of the time on the Lady Rams’ side of the field and the Lady Blues capitalized.

With time closing in on the first half, Graham’s offensive prowess showed again. Pettus once again had the ball in the middle of the field as the Lady Blues worked their way towards the goal. The junior passed to sophomore Becca Heartfield for another open, easy goal to put the team up 3-0 with about two minutes to go.

Despite holding an already impressive lead, the Lady Blues weren’t done. They continued to put pressure on Mineral Wells and with just over 40 seconds remaining in the first half, the Lady Rams were called for a handball in the box.

After assisting on two of the team’s three goals, Pettus took this penalty kick herself and easily shot it past the keeper for the team’s fourth and final goal of the match.

“I thought that (the Lady Blues) played really well,” head coach Casey Weil said. “We did some different stuff defensively that we put in this past week and I thought that they did an extremely good job executing it. If you watch the game, (we limited) their chances and (maximized) ours…I don't think that we chased the ball or anything like that; I thought that we let the ball do most of the work.”

Holding onto a 4-0 lead, all the Lady Blues needed to do was play defense the rest of the game, which they did by continuing to run a strong offense. Although they didn’t score in the second half, Graham controlled the ball and took a lot of shots on goal.

The team dealt with inaccurate shots and Mineral Wells’ goalkeeper saved a few, but Graham kept the pressure up the whole game. And when the horn sounded, the Lady Blues walked off with their first district win.

“Very proud of the start. Wish we could have put a couple more in (the goal) in the second half but I will never ever be upset with a 4-0 start,” Weil said. “I think as the team goes defensively I thought we played really well.”