Lady Lions await Peach State power
You don’t need to be a Georgia high school soccer historian to understand where Blessed Trinity and the Central High School girls’ program stand heading into today’s 6 p.m. Class AAA state quarterfinal at Roy Richards Memorial Stadium.
The perennial Peach State power Lady Titans (15-2-1) enter tonight’s matchup ranked No. 1 in AAA and have won more state championships than the Lady Lions have won state playoff games in their history by a five-to-two margin.
Of course, both of Central’s playoff wins have come in the past two weeks during the first two rounds of the postseason — defeating Southeast Bulloch (2-1) in the opening round and Central, Macon (2-0) on Tuesday.
But the Lady Lions (10-6) face an entirely different animal this evening in the Lady Titans, who have allowed just six goals all season to 88 scores of their own, having defeated White County (9-1) and LFO (4-0) on their path to the quarterfinals.
“I think it’s easy to say they have a more storied program, they have a more established program and they have a lot of success that they travel with. They’ve got the advantage of having all the private school advantages that they’ve got. They’ve got a roster full of athletes who compete at the club level. And they compete a lot,” noted Lady Lion coach Marcus Marenda.
And while you can use the old adage that since nobody expected Central to even be here in the first place, it’s playing with house money and has nothing to lose. At that same token, Marenda doesn’t want his young squad to be content with just getting here, either.
“Our trick now is do we succumb to the fact that we’re matching up with a superior opponent or do we accept and embrace the fact that we do have a shot and that we deserve to be here?” Marenda said. “If we can embrace that and approach it that way, I think we can give ourselves a real, legitimate chance.”
Central senior AnnaLeah Deese noted that while it has been an amazing run thus far, her teammates aren’t ready to see it end just yet.
“Winning those two games was the biggest for us. That got everybody going. It got everybody’s confidence up. We’ve just been telling them to keep their heads up. We are that good. No matter what our record says, the record doesn’t tell anything. We’ve become a lot better over the year,” Deese said.
“We’ve just got to go in with our heads held high knowing that Blessed Trinity is a good team, but if we play like we should then we can handle it. We just want to keep making history, because it feels good to make history.”
Lady Lion sophomore Darby Turner agreed that the feel-good factor has steadily grown over the past few weeks, adding that the team is believing in itself more and more each time out.
“We didn’t have that before and you can just see it. Everyone’s proud to be part of Central soccer. Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, we made it to the elite eight.’ Everybody is just happy and wants to be here and we want to go farther,” Turner said.
Fellow sophomore Wesli Simmons said the team’s success has created a buzz throughout the school over the past few weeks.
“Being on this team, it’s awesome because we all know that we’re doing something great at Central. The atmosphere at school has just been amazing, because everybody is just there to support us, congratulating us and just being behind us 100 percent no matter what happens,” Simmons said.
And it’s not just the high school that is jumping on the Lady Lion bandwagon. Assistant coach Brittany Maddox teaches at Central Middle School and she said soccer fever is heating up there, as well.
“Those teachers that had these girls are just super, super proud of them ... The pride just overall, even from the feeder school, it’s just super support. I mean, our teachers from the middle school are out here every game. It’s an electric feeling,” Maddox said.
The David versus Goliath theme for tonight’s game isn’t lost on Central, but the squad is eager to show that it does belong while building the foundation for the future at the same time.
“We’re a little nervous knowing that they’ve won five state championships, but I think we’re pretty confident, too. I think we could possibly hold them down,” Central goalkeeper Amber Powell said. “It’s a big opportunity for us. We’re really excited. We keep saying that we’ve made it so far, but that’s not where we want to stop. We want to keep making history.”
So as the darlings of AAA attempt to continue their Cinderella run, they’re looking for as much support as possible this evening to rock out Roy Richards Stadium.
“If you get people cheering for you and a nice, electric atmosphere, magical things happen. So maybe we can catch a little bit of magic with our girls [Friday],” Marenda said.
The perennial Peach State power Lady Titans (15-2-1) enter tonight’s matchup ranked No. 1 in AAA and have won more state championships than the Lady Lions have won state playoff games in their history by a five-to-two margin.
Of course, both of Central’s playoff wins have come in the past two weeks during the first two rounds of the postseason — defeating Southeast Bulloch (2-1) in the opening round and Central, Macon (2-0) on Tuesday.
But the Lady Lions (10-6) face an entirely different animal this evening in the Lady Titans, who have allowed just six goals all season to 88 scores of their own, having defeated White County (9-1) and LFO (4-0) on their path to the quarterfinals.
“I think it’s easy to say they have a more storied program, they have a more established program and they have a lot of success that they travel with. They’ve got the advantage of having all the private school advantages that they’ve got. They’ve got a roster full of athletes who compete at the club level. And they compete a lot,” noted Lady Lion coach Marcus Marenda.
And while you can use the old adage that since nobody expected Central to even be here in the first place, it’s playing with house money and has nothing to lose. At that same token, Marenda doesn’t want his young squad to be content with just getting here, either.
“Our trick now is do we succumb to the fact that we’re matching up with a superior opponent or do we accept and embrace the fact that we do have a shot and that we deserve to be here?” Marenda said. “If we can embrace that and approach it that way, I think we can give ourselves a real, legitimate chance.”
Central senior AnnaLeah Deese noted that while it has been an amazing run thus far, her teammates aren’t ready to see it end just yet.
“Winning those two games was the biggest for us. That got everybody going. It got everybody’s confidence up. We’ve just been telling them to keep their heads up. We are that good. No matter what our record says, the record doesn’t tell anything. We’ve become a lot better over the year,” Deese said.
“We’ve just got to go in with our heads held high knowing that Blessed Trinity is a good team, but if we play like we should then we can handle it. We just want to keep making history, because it feels good to make history.”
Lady Lion sophomore Darby Turner agreed that the feel-good factor has steadily grown over the past few weeks, adding that the team is believing in itself more and more each time out.
“We didn’t have that before and you can just see it. Everyone’s proud to be part of Central soccer. Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, we made it to the elite eight.’ Everybody is just happy and wants to be here and we want to go farther,” Turner said.
Fellow sophomore Wesli Simmons said the team’s success has created a buzz throughout the school over the past few weeks.
“Being on this team, it’s awesome because we all know that we’re doing something great at Central. The atmosphere at school has just been amazing, because everybody is just there to support us, congratulating us and just being behind us 100 percent no matter what happens,” Simmons said.
And it’s not just the high school that is jumping on the Lady Lion bandwagon. Assistant coach Brittany Maddox teaches at Central Middle School and she said soccer fever is heating up there, as well.
“Those teachers that had these girls are just super, super proud of them ... The pride just overall, even from the feeder school, it’s just super support. I mean, our teachers from the middle school are out here every game. It’s an electric feeling,” Maddox said.
The David versus Goliath theme for tonight’s game isn’t lost on Central, but the squad is eager to show that it does belong while building the foundation for the future at the same time.
“We’re a little nervous knowing that they’ve won five state championships, but I think we’re pretty confident, too. I think we could possibly hold them down,” Central goalkeeper Amber Powell said. “It’s a big opportunity for us. We’re really excited. We keep saying that we’ve made it so far, but that’s not where we want to stop. We want to keep making history.”
So as the darlings of AAA attempt to continue their Cinderella run, they’re looking for as much support as possible this evening to rock out Roy Richards Stadium.
“If you get people cheering for you and a nice, electric atmosphere, magical things happen. So maybe we can catch a little bit of magic with our girls [Friday],” Marenda said.
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