Girls soccer: Oak Ridge shuts out Halls in first home game

 

The Oak Ridge girls soccer team shut out Halls 8-0 during the first home game of the regular season on Thursday.

The Lady Wildcats led 5-0 at halftime and scored three more goals in the second half.

Sophomore Maddie Peters, credited with five shots, scored first for Oak Ridge about eight minutes into the game. She fired a shot from the right side of the goal box, and it bounced in off the left upright.

About 13 minutes later, senior Zoe Van Hook passed the soccer ball across the field from right to left and freshman Katelyn Mattus kicked it into the left side of the net.

A minute later, Oak Ridge scored again when sophomore Katie O’Brien lofted a shot that bounced in off the hands of Halls goalkeeper Madison Wright.

After a water break, Mattus scored again on a line-drive shot into the top right of the net. The score was 4-0 about 19 minutes into the first half.

The final goal of the first half was by freshman SaRhi Wright, who scored off a deflection off Madison Wright, the Halls goalkeeper, with about 3.5 minutes remaining.

Oak Ridge had several scoring opportunities early in the second half, including at least three by O’Brien, who shot wide left once and was stopped by Madison Wright twice.

But O’Brien knocked one in from about 20 yards out, near the center of the penalty box, in the 49th minute, making the score 6-0. It was her second goal of the game.

The final two scores were in the final six minutes of the game by junior Kelsey Giannelli, who launched a deep shot from near midfield that bounced in off the hands of Wright, and sophomore Jennie Pont Briant, who scored on a deflection off of Madison Wright.

Oak Ridge Coach Jeff Trombly said the young Lady Wildcats team—12 freshman, seven sophomores, two juniors, and three seniors—played well on Thursday.

“This really is the most talented team I’ve had,” said Trombly, who is now in his fourth year coaching at Oak Ridge High School. They have the most potential, he said.

The Lady Wildcats were able to rotate all players who were able to play onto the field on Thursday.

The girls are still working on their possession game, and they need a target player, someone to lead attacks, Trombly said.

Halls is used to playing on a smaller field and “ran out of gas,” he said.

The Lady Wildcats are playing again this weekend at the Bearden Invitational in Knoxville. They won their first game 3-2 against Arlington, according to results posted on CoachT.com. They were scheduled to play Bartlett at 12 p.m. Saturday and Notre Dame at 4 p.m. Sunday. Arlington and Bartlett are, like Oak Ridge, both Class AAA teams. Arlington and Bartlett are both from Shelby County in West Tennessee. Notre Dame is a Class AA team from Chattanooga.

Trombly said the Bearden tournament would be a good early test for Oak Ridge.

The Lady Wildcats are playing five games in their first week of the regular season, or close to one-third of their 17 games.

Oak Ridge will play its next district game at Campbell County on Tuesday. The Lady Wildcats will be back at home against Grace Christian on Tuesday, August 29.

Oak Ridge also shut out Halls 11-0 in 2016, and they did the previous year as well, 7-0 during the regular season in 2015 and 10-0 in the District 3-AAA semifinal that same year.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

See the 2017 girls soccer schedule here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More information will be added as it becomes available.

---

Do you appreciate this story or our work in general? If so, please consider a monthly subscription to Oak Ridge Today. See our Subscribe page here. Thank you for reading Oak Ridge Today.

Copyright 2017 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.