Lady Champions drop close one

Cascade's Aimee Taylor battles a Lady Cougar for possession. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

The Lady Champions had their fair share of chances. They totaled 35 shots and had a number of scoring opportunities throughout the match, including a pair of corner kicks that sailed in front of the goal with less than three minutes to play.

Goalkeeper Katie Mullins had 24 saves for the Lady Cougars.

Cascade might have been set up for failure after coming from two goals down twice at Spring Hill last week to earn a tie versus a team that's won a vast majority of their matches in District 11-A/AA, including some lopsided victories over the Orange and Black.

Nevertheless, coach Patricia Petty said her Lady Champs (3-3-1, 3-2-1) knew they were in for a dogfight.

"Of course it's a letdown, but we knew this game was going to be as hard as it was," she said. "We expected this to be a real tough game. We expected to only win this game if we could play our best, and we couldn't play our best."

A few of Petty's veterans were ill this week and unable to take the field at 100 percent. So, they went to work with mostly freshmen and sophomores. Those youngsters showed that the future of Cascade soccer looks bright by giving MTC (7-2, 6-1) all they could handle.

"Some of them haven't played much at all this year, and they came in and did a pretty good job," Petty said. "We won on possession. We won on number of shots. We didn't win because our shots weren't hard enough. Their goalie was good, but we didn't challenge her."

The emphasis in practice today will be on "accurate passing and hard shooting" as Cascade prepares for their sixth straight district match when Cornersville comes to town on Thursday afternoon at 5:30.