By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
MOORE – Yukon went into the season finale with the idea of winning its first district title in five years.
The one good thing that came out of the match is that the Millerettes still get to open the playoffs on their home field.
Westmoore scored in the first eight minutes of the match, twice in the first 20 and snapped the Millerettes 11-match win streak, 3-0, Friday night at Westmoore.
The Millerettes, 12-3, will host Southmoore in the opening round of the playoffs on Tuesday at Miller Stadium.
Both YHS and Westmoore came into the match with 6-0 District 6A-1 records and the title on the line. And, for the second year in a row, the Lady Jaguars scored early to take control of the match and controlled the tempo all night.
“We came out and played tonight, we just didn’t execute on the defensive side against the throw-ins,” Millerette head coach Steve Scott said. “We knew if they were going to score it was going to be off those throw-ins, they have done that all year.
“We worked on it to the best we can,” he said. “We knew they were going to play physical and at times they were, but that is the way they played.
“We started out in a good way, but we had a spell and it led to them scoring two goals in the first half. You can’t give a team like Westmoore a two goal lead and expect to come back, they had given up only two goals in a game once all season.”
The one thing Westmoore did was double and sometimes triple team Millerettes leading scoring Myka Heimbach. Everytime she got the ball a Westmoore defender was there to put a body on her to try and take her off the ball.
“We had to think of some different ways to get her into space,” Scott said. “It allowed her to make a few plays with a diagonal ball played here or there.
“A lot of the thing was our spacing,” he said. “When we were attacking, either a midfield or a back weren’t getting up with our forwards and when we got the ball, we didn’t have the support behind them and that helped Westmoore keep the ball and move it.”
Westmoore did score their first two goals off throw-ins. The first one came at the 7:30 mark. The ball was thrown to the middle and after a deflection and a scramble for the ball, Brooklyn Fink put the ball into an open net.
Kelli McLeroy scored the second Westmoore goal again off a throw-in. She had the ball on the wing and fired a shot that just skipped past goal keeper Abby Camp at the 17:45 mark.
Westmoore put the capper on in the second half on a corner kick. The bal cleared the crowd in the middle of the box to Bayleigh Fink, who one touched the ball to the net in the 70th minute.
“We had a spell where we were sitting back a little bit and were tentative,” Scott said. “It was like we were afraid to make a mistake and just didn’t continue to do what we normally do.
“We switched to a 4-3-3 in the second half, they responded and we did create a lot of opportunities,” he said. “We flipped it a little bit when we pressured them in the second half and we had chances, they didn’t go in.”
