Eaglettes drop shocker in 8-AAA soccer tourney

It was a good night for the visiting underdogs as both lower seeds advanced to the finals Monday in the District 8-AAA Soccer Tournament.

Top seed Tullahoma was edged 2-1 by Columbia while second seed Shelbyville Central was shut out 1-0 by Lawrence County in overtime.

It's the first time that Shelbyville or Tullahoma didn't advance to the district championship.

"This is a statement that our district is becoming more balanced," Shelbyville coach Neal Gordon said. "The two lower seeds advanced in the boys district tournament last spring as well."

The game was scoreless at the end of regulation and the winning goal came off the foot of Carla Gross with slightly over three minutes left in the first 10 minute overtime.

The Eaglettes (8-6-1) fired off 11 shots on goal compared to Lawrence County's three and had a 7-1 advantage on corner kicks.

"We did everything we could except find the back of the net," Gordon said. "We had a number of good shots but they just didn't fall for us. If any one of those shots go in I think that would have been enough to win the game.

"Sometimes you can beat the team but you can't win the game and tonight we struggled with beating the game."

Shelbyville rolled to a 5-0 win at Lawrence County's Senior Night and that was all the motivation the Lady Wildcats needed.

"Their coach told me after the game that his girls were embarrassed by that loss and they thought they were a better team than they showed that night," Gordon said. "They entered this game with a lot of desire and they played that way. I give them credit. They played extremely well on defense, their keeper made a lot of saves and the longer they were able to stay in the game the more determined they got."

Shelbyville closed out the first half with a pair of great scoring opportunities that just missed the goal.

"Lawrence County played the type of pressure that created a lot of mistakes in our passing and I think that was one of the keys to their victory," Gordon said. "They created so much pressure that it forced us to make bad passes and we didn't keep our composure under that pressure.

"I hate for it to end this way for our seniors because they have been good senior leaders for us all year and I know we'll miss them. We do have a lot of young kids coming back that got a lot of playing time this year and we're really looking forward to next year."