Warren girls soccer cruises past Miami Trace
Now, Warren turns its attention to Waverly in that final on Saturday. Head coach Andrew Pinkerton spoke about how the team came out and attacked from the start.
“We knew we would be able to do what got us here,” he said. Offensively, being able to move the ball pretty well. We’ll try to carry it through to Saturday’s game, which will also be here at Warren. It seemed like in the first half, we kind of let the ground dictate what we were going to do with the ball, so once we started to mentally check into the game, we started to understand the circumstances and play our game.”
The first half ended with a 3-1 Warrior advantage. Miami Trace keeper Keeley Ramirez struggled to clean up around the box, and that allowed Warren (10-3-4) many opportunities to strike. Taylor Sloan was the first Warrior to benefit from a deflection, as she found the back of the net in the 14th minute.
Following a Payton Alloway score in the 26th minute, the Panthers had a flicker of life with a Magarah Bloom goal in the 35th. Alloway quickly made up for that score, as she used an assist from Alysa Pinkerton to give her team a two-goal cushion with a minute until the break. Alloway talked about her team’s big day and what the expectations are when getting into bigger matches.
“I think we just have a really good friendship on the team,” she said. “I like being able to do things for them, like scoring and making opportunities. It just means a lot to me, and I like to help out my teammates as much as possible.”
While Warren’s Millie Ryan didn’t have much to worry about at her end, MTHS backup goalie Jylian Skaggs was the next one up for the Panthers. Even with the goalkeeper change, the Warriors continued to assert themselves.
Macie Smith joined Alloway with two goals of her own coming in the 41st and 50th minutes, respectively. Following those quick strikes, reserves from both sides started pouring in.
Alexis Frazee cleaned up the mess made by Skaggs for a 6-1 lead at that point. For what could have been the final match of the year for the Warriors, they kept having fun and spreading the ball around.
Coach Pinkerton remarked about his team’s selflessness throughout this contest and this season.
“It didn’t slow us down. We continued to put the pressure on the other goalkeeper,” he said. “We scored a few extra. We have a lot of girls with heart and determination, and I knew they were going to be a quality team this year. They haven’t surprised me in that aspect, because we’ve worked hard all season.”
Mia Turner was the next Warrior to score, as a ball hurdled towards Skaggs, who was unable to corral it in the 70th minute. Following Bloom’s second score of the night, Savannah Banks got an assist from Turner and turned it into the final tally of the contest in the 77th.
Contact Josh Hughes at jhughes@newsandsentinel.com