Staff report
LANDIS – There’s a fine line between elation and frustration, and Salisbury’s girls soccer team experienced the thrill of victory one more time on Thursday against a county rival.
The Hornets held on 3-2 at South Rowan in South Piedmont Conference action, backing up their 4-3 overtime win at home early in the season.
Salisbury led 2-1 at the half with Maddie Crabb and Mary Masters Goodman scoring goals.
Gabbi Fatovic, who was exhausted at the end but wasn’t leaving the field under any circumstances, made it 3-1 with a left-footed banger with 20 minutes left in the match. That missile turned out to be the game-winner.
Anna Kate Goodman and Crabb had assists for the Hornets.
Cailynn Withers scored both goals for the Raiders, including one that sliced the Hornets’ edge to 3-2 with 18 minutes left.
South had 11 shots in the match against Salisbury keeper Reid Stewart and had several chances late to send the match to overtime. One of those shots struck the post with about a minute left.
“It was a great game, a fun game, but it was a very frustrating loss,” South head coach Brian Bell said. “It’s especially hard because I know we are the better squad technically. Salisbury plays a very different brand of soccer, and we just haven’t been able to get over the hump against them.”
Bell, who got a yellow card, said he thought the Raiders were going to get a penalty kick late in the match, but it was waived off.
South Rowan (8-4-1, 4-4) has a very strong team, but the Raiders have lost four times in the SPC by one goal, with half those losses to the Hornets (11-1, 6-1). The other losses were to Robinson and Northwest Cabarrus. South came close to knocking off Northwest, which has been overwhelming most of its opponents, on Tuesday.
South has steamrolled average opponents by big numbers and is the only team that has beaten West Stanly.
Salisbury has scratched out too-close-for-comfort wins against some of the SPC’s second-division aggregations, but except for a setback against stout Robinson, the Hornets have always found a way to come out on top.
Parrish lauded the play of Lola Koontz and Meredith Williams, among others.
“We’ve got a myriad of players with scrapes, sprains, bruises and other minor injuries,” Parrish said. “I don’t think a lot of pundits had this result (Salisbury winning at South) on their prediction list. South has been mowing teams down, and we’ve been struggling with continuity but still getting results. We wanted to get back to basics, focus on individual improvement, and find some cohesion tonight. To a large degree, it worked, although we were unable to slow down Cailynn Withers. She’s a quality player. I can live with her scoring two goals.”
Salisbury faces powerful Northwest Cabarrus for the first time on Monday, but it won’t have to worry about South again – unless the teams meet in the 4A state playoffs.
No matter what happens from here on out, Parrish is pleased that the Hornets prevailed in both marquee county matchups for this season.
‘We never trailed in either match against South and we led a significant period of that time,” Parrish said. “That’s a testament to our girls and their commitment to discipline against a very good team. Coach (Landon) Goodman did an excellent job of game-planning and making adjustments during the course of the match. Overall, it was just a great night to be on the visitors’ sidelines.”
