Lady Blues soccer falls 6-1 against Old High

In their second go-around through the district schedule, the Lady Blues couldn’t figure out the Wichita Falls Old High Lady Coyotes and took their second district loss to them 6-1.

On a windy evening in Wichita Falls, the Lady Blues dealt with more self-inflicted mistakes in this matchup, which led to a large, early deficit that was hard to climb out of.

“Anytime you come out and play against a good team, you have to limit your mistakes,” head coach Casey Weil said. “...That was the most disappointing part about tonight is we made some mistakes of things that we have coached them not to do…(but) they were playing hard and we just got caught a couple times.”

Graham fought a strong wind throughout the first half, as it made moving the ball down or across the field more difficult than usual. The home team Lady Coyotes took full advantage and spent a lot of time on the visitors’ side of the field with opportunities to score.

Old High scored the first goal of the game just over two minutes into it as they broke down Graham’s defense and fired a 15-yard goal to lead 1-0. It came as a bit of a shock to the Lady Blues, but they buckled down and played strong defense over the next 20 minutes of the first half.

Offense was hard to come by for the Lady Blues as the Lady Coyotes excelled at maintaining possession of the ball. Senior Sophie Schlieper managed Graham’s first shot on goal about 20 minutes into the game, but it missed just a few feet high of the net.

“I chose to go against the wind to start,” Weil said. “I thought if we would have held on and we did pretty well for about the first 25 minutes, it was 1-0…I think we got a little bit tired and started making a couple of mistakes and that's when they were able to put a couple of goals on us.”

Over the final 19 minutes of the first half, Old High scored four more times in different ways each time. The Lady Coyotes had a breakaway goal, a corner kick headed into the net, a long 30-yard shot and one that ricocheted off a Lady Blue defender into the goal. At halftime, Old High led 5-0.

“I challenged the girls at halftime to come out and play with heart, play for Graham, play for themselves and I think they did that,” Weil said. “I saw some good things in the second half with people playing with their heart and playing for the school and the city of Graham so we can take some positives out of it.”

With a little over eight minutes to play and the outcome practically decided, Schlieper found position past the Old High defense in the box, received a pass from sophomore Becca Heartfield and fired a shot at goal. The Lady Coyotes keeper got a hand on it, but it wasn’t enough as the ball bounced off her hand and into the goal for the Lady Blues’ first and only score of the night.

The Lady Blues will get some time to rest before their next district matchup at home Tuesday, March 5 against Hirschi, with kick-off scheduled for 5:30 p.m.