Sports

Lee girls earn shot at revenge

• With a 6-0 rout of Evans on Wednesday in the first round of the playoffs, the Lee County girls soccer team earns a shot at Whitewater, which ended its season a year ago.

Matt Stewart

LEESBURG — Lee County girls’ soccer head coach Amy Cash and Whitewater head coach Heather Allen can talk now.

Cash politely declined to discuss a possible second round matchup with the defending Class AAAA state champion’s head coach prior to Wednesday’s first round test against Evans High School.

But after a dominant 6-0 win at home over Evans, Cash and the Lady Trojans are thinking revenge.

“I think I’ll respond to (Allen’s) e-mail now,” Cash said.

Class AAAA No. 6 Whitewater, which eliminated Lee County (16-2-1) from the playoffs a year ago, defeated Griffin, 9-0, Wednesday to set up the second round playoff grudge match.

Lee County (Region 1-AAAA No. 1 seed) and Whitewater (Region 2-AAAA No. 2 seed) will meet Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. on Trojan Field.

To earn that shot, the Lady Trojans had to first take care of business against Evans (7-8).

Lee sophomores Rachel Hatch and Lindsey Crawford scored two goals apiece to lead Lee County’s offensive outburst.

Hatch scored in the eighth minute by burying a shot in the top left corner of the net and then hit Crawford with a timely crossing pass for a 2-0 lead in the 17th minute of the first half.

 Lady Trojan Heidi Johnson added a third first half goal before halftime and Haley Cimino capped the Lee County scoring at the 21:43 mark of the second half.

“We were thinking it would be even, but that was just domination,” Cash said. “I’m excited.”

Lee County put 17 shots on net to Evans’ two, leading to a slow but effective day at the office for Lady Trojans’ sophomore goal keeper Ashley Law.

“Ashley did a good job directing traffic,” Lee County assistant head coach Christine Owen said, adding that Law has adjusted nicely in net in only her second full season as a goal keeper.

Afterwards, Lee County was already beginning to look ahead to next week’s showdown. Asked if she knew who she might be playing, senior Kali Bailey said with some trepidation,“Whitewater, defending state champs.

“We’ve been looking forward to that game all season. That’ll be a great game.”

This from junior April Bailey after last season’s 3-2 loss to Whitewater in the second round at home: “We want to go farther. We showed them what we had. We will get them next year.”

Whitewater lost one senior off last season’s Class AAAA state championship team, Cash said, and that player is now on a full ride soccer scholarship at the University of Georgia. Lee County also returns its nucleus for Wednesday’s rematch.

“We’re definitely better and we’re ready,” Cash said.

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