SILER CITY — Jordan-Matthews was notably nervous in its state playoff opener versus Spring Creek last Tuesday.
Three nights later that wasn’t the case as the J-M girl’s soccer team overwhelmed Bunn 7-0 on Friday evening in Siler City in second round action of the NCHSAA 2A State Playoffs.
“We were so happy to host a Friday night game, and the J-M and Siler City community really came out and supported us,” said J-M coach Chip Millard. “The Jets felt the home field advantage all night.
Millard said practice time was key in preparing for a dangerous Bunn attack.
“We saw that Bunn’s team was fronted by three forwards that were lighting fast, and could really slice through a defense to shoot, and score often,” continued Millard. “We worked in practice with our already strong defense to recognize their sprint to the goal, then rush to contain them. We worked hard in practice to play as a complete team, and communicate as a team during the match, something we had not done with consistency throughout the season.
That practice and preparation paid off as Jordan-Matthews put forth its most complete team effort all season in dominating the contest for all 80 minutes in taking the 7-0 victory.
“Playing as a team, and communicating as a team, allowed us to control the game the entire 80 minutes,” added Millard.
Yasmin Rivera scored two goals in the first half, including tapping in a ball off of a cross from the right side of the field by Diana Mendoza halfway through the first half. Two minutes later, in a scramble in front of the goal on a corner kick, Rivera was able to get her foot on the ball and crash into goal to send the Lady Jets up 2-0.
In the second half the Lady Jets relentlessly kept attacking, which led to 5 goals in the final 40 minutes of action.
The first two were scored by our right forward Diana Mendoza, the first a rebound that had bounced off of the goal, and the second goal was of the spectacular kind as Diana collected the ball in midfield, began to dribble toward goal, saw that no one from Bunn was stepping up to defend her. Mendoza proceeded to barge forward and put it in the goal, past Bunn goalkeeper Delylah Jackson.
Jennifer Parroquin, the Jets leading scorer, then went to work and the sophomore twice worked to dribble through defenders to get the open shot and found the net on two occasions to up the Jordan-Matthews advantage to a commanding 6-0.
The last goal of the evening, with 10 minutes remaining, came from another cross in from Mendoza who connected with Brisa Romero for the tap in to goal to cap the 7-0 triumph.
“Even with all the offensive effort, the star of the night on the Jets team was senior goalkeeper Hannah Jones,” noted Millard. “She had 15 saves in the contest, including three that forced her in the air for diving saves. The most spectacular of the night had her making a save on a hard shot from a Bunn attacker and Hannah could get her hand on the ball, but not contain it, so the ball pushed back out. The same attacker kicked another shot on goal, but Hannah reacted in time to make a second save!”
Jones collected the win in the shutout for the Jets who improved to 14-7 while Jackson suffered the loss for 9-6 Bunn.
“We were really surprised after the game that we had fared so well against Bunn, who had an excellent regular season, and scored in every contest,” closed Millard. “But our complete team effort was just hard to beat - it was as if everything we had worked on in practice all season came to fruition in the playoff game.”
Jordan-Matthews now faced a monumental road contest on Wednesday evening in the third round of the state playoffs when the Lady Jets travel to No. 1 seed in the East, Croatan High School. Croatan is 20-3 on the season and fresh off back to back 9-0 playoff wins over Wilson Beddingfield and South Lenoir.
Millard feels his Jets can go an give the powerful Cougars a match if they continue to communicate and play as a team.
“We understand how strong of a team they are, but feel if we can replicate our effort and communication we offered in the Bunn game, we can compete with a team of Croatan’s level,” pointed out Millard.
Regardless of the outcome, Millard is proud of his team for all they have accomplished thus far this season.
“We are also so happy with our season so far, and at the first of the season, as a team, we set a goal of finishing first in conference, and we did,” Millard said. “Then we started looking to playoffs, and setting goals of advancing in the playoffs (last year we lost in the first round to a strong Richlands team), and have now advanced to the third round! We are happy with the success, but want to keep pushing forward for two reasons. One to see how far we can go in the playoffs, bringing recognition to the Lady Jets Soccer program, and the second is that the players have formed a strong bond of team spirit this season, and they want to keep playing together! Especially for the 9 seniors on the team that have led us all the way.”