Game #1 – Stratford vs. Memorial Tomball High School

On Thursday, January 5th your Spartans Girls Soccer team traveled to the Woodlands for the first of three matches in the Woodlands Elite Tournament. There were high schools from as far as central and north Texas, with our first opponent being the Memorial Tomball Wildcats. The Lady Wildcats are ranked 6th in the 6A-Region 2 area … so no easy warm-up games. Roughly 10 minutes after the match began Stratford committed a foul right outside our 18’ box, but Senior Alison Zilafro handled the free kick with ease – it’s nice to have an experienced senior in goal. However, with 3 minutes left in the first half, the Wildcats took the ball up the right side and were able to sneak behind our defense and cross the ball to a trailing Memorial Tomball midfielder who found an open corner of the goal at the 37’-mark at point blank range, which took us to halftime down 0-1.

Coach Walters must have given a great halftime speech, as we took total offensive control of the second half and came out firing. About 30 seconds in, Freshmen Sidney Valentine was able to get free to fire a shot, but just missed her mark wide right – a great start to the second half though. At the 49’-mark, one of our players was fouled and Senior Ellie Stephenson took the free kick from right inside midfield, and what looked like was going to be a perfect shot, just binked off the crossbar straight up and away from what would have been a fantastic goal. We had three more shots as we approached the 57’-mark, but both of those just missed as well. As time was running out, Senior Lauren Ahearn got free and was able to take a shot that sailed just over the crossbar. As offensively dominant as we were in the second half, we just couldn't find the back of the net and the game finished 1-0 in the Wildcats favor.

Game #2 – Stratford vs. San Antonio Johnson High School

On Friday, January 6th, the Spartans traveled back to The Woodlands to meet the San Antonio Johnson Jaguars for game two. The Jaguars were also ranked, showing up as the 7th ranked team in 6A-Region 4. In this game and the next, we were missing several starters and knew we would need to play our best and that’s what we did. At the 20'-mark in the first half, Senior midfielder Elizabeth Pretzantzin fired a shot from 30 yards out that the Jaguar goalie had to make a miraculous play on to punch the ball away at the last second. As time was ticking down in the first half, and with just a few minutes to play, Senior Ellie Stephenson took a free kick from 20 yards out on the right side of the field. Their goalie got a finger on it to deflect it away, but Freshmen Sidney Valentine was ready for the loose ball and attacked it with a header that came off a little high and skipped over the crossbar. The half would end shortly after, still 0-0.

The Lady Spartans controlled the ball most of the first half - but didn’t have their first real opportunity for a goal until about 25 minutes in at the 65’-mark. After the ball was sent out of bounds by the Jaguars, Sophomore Hannah Ryan took the thrown-in and delivered a perfect ball to Senior Kristin Geczik, who was able to make a textbook cross to Senior Lauren Ahearn who drove up the left side and took a shot right outside the 18' box, aiming it at the far right side, where the goalie would have no chance – and with that shot, your Spartans went up 1-0. There were however a couple of minutes left to play and on an ensuing punt from our end to midfield, a Jaguar player was able to head the ball back toward our goal to their waiting forward who took the ball up the right side and took a long shot to the far left post past our diving goalie and pushed the score to 1-1 with less than a minute to play. Final score 1-1.

Game #3 – Stratford vs. Round Rock Westwood High SchoolThe Spartans traveled to the Woodlands on Saturday, January 7th, one last and final time to play their third and last match of the tournament against the Round Rock Westwood Warriors. This pitted your #3 ranked 6A-Region 3 Spartans against their toughest opponent so far this year in the #2 ranked 6A-Region 4 Warrior squad. Still missing a number of starters, your Spartans would need to give 110% until the final whistle. Stratford took the field in their ‘away all whites,’ while the Warriors donned full burnt orange kits. This was not going to be a slow start, as the Lady Spartans attempted two corner kicks in the first 15 minutes, but neither were converted into a goal. After another 15 minutes and 3/4 of the way through the first half, we still seemed to be controlling the ball on all ends but hadn’t found the back of the net. As the first half was coming to a close, Round Rock Westwood picked up their third yellow card of the afternoon, which was a good sign, as they were becoming more and more frustrated with the type of play they were up against. A few minutes later, the referee’s whistle blew, and we went to halftime still sitting at 0-0.

At the 45’-mark, the Warriors took a corner kick from the right side that traveled all the way to the far post, where our goalie was able to punch the ball away, but it ricocheted around and rolled into the goal as a pile of bodies collided and two players took several minutes to get up – this ended up being a very unlucky play. With that said, the Spartans wouldn’t let that affect them – at the 60’-mark, Freshmen Sara Benton was fouled just outside the box, and we were awarded a direct free kick. Senior Kristin Geczik took the kick and fired a perfect ball in the top left corner of the goal, where absolutely no one could get to it, taking the score to 1-1. We had two more scoring opportunities with a free kick at the 73' and a corner kick at the 77’, but neither were converted, and we ended up tied 1-1 in the game and 0-1-2 overall record for the weekend.

The Spartans Girls Soccer team travels to central Texas next week for the Georgetown Elite Invitational – on January 12th-14th. They’ll be facing more tough competition in teams from San Angelo, Grapevine (#1 in 5A-Region 1), and Hebron (#7 6A-Region 1). Wish them luck when you see them this week!