When a soccer team is struggling to score goals, there’s nothing like an 8-0 victory to toss aside those doubts.
After scoring just two goals in its first four games combined, the Emporia High girls soccer team busted loose offensively against Junction City on Thursday night at TRYSA, leveling an 8-0 stomping on the Lady Blue Jays in Emporia’s home opener.
Emporia had 16 shots on goal to zero for Junction City.
“I just told the team, ‘Hey, we scored eight times as many goals as we had scored in a game all year,” EHS coach John Decker joked afterward. “We needed to find a way to get the ball in the net. It was obvious tonight that there were opportunities where we didn’t get it in the net, and we need to figure that out, but they’re looking a whole lot better than they did the first game of the season.”
Emporia (2-3) got its scoring going despite a roughly played match on Junction City’s part.
Emporia scored two of its goals on penalty kicks after Junction City fouls in the first half, midfielder Jessica Decker took a shot to the ribs on a goal in the second half and starter Chelsea Pearson went down with an ankle injury early in the game and did not return.
But while physical play was something their coach thought was lacking from the squad through the first few games, the Lady Spartans never retaliated in a negative way.
Instead, the Lady Spartans hit where it hurt the most: on the scoreboard.
“I’m sure some of them were not very happy with how much we were scoring,” said sophomore Jordan Sosa, who scored a pair of goals. “Coach has been telling us we need to play more physical, but we don’t want to get too physical. We don’t want to push it over the limit. But we were holding our own.”
Added senior Kylie White, who also scored twice: “I think we kept our heads above that kind of play. We just tried to play through it and not get hurt.”
Emporia wasted little time getting out to a lead, as Sosa scored 3 minutes into the game off a deflection in front of the net to put EHS ahead, 1-0.
It would be another 30 minutes before EHS found the net again, but the Lady Spartans got a flurry of goals late in the first half to take a 4-0 lead into halftime.
The first two came on a pair of Brittany Meza penalty kicks less than 5 minutes apart. She knocked the first into the upper right corner off the goalkeeper’s hands in the 34th minute and then rolled the second right down the middle in the 37th minute, putting Emporia up, 3-0.
Emporia’s fourth goal of the half came in the 39th minute when Bailey Sosa smashed a cross from the right side to White, who easily knocked it home to give Emporia a 4-0 lead.
“This was a good game to get our confidence in our shooting back and going,” White said.
Ten minutes into the second half, EHS revved up the scoring again.
Jessica Decker took a pass from Meza and raced toward the goal, and just as she knocked the ball past Junction City goalie Susan Overstreet, Overstreet slammed into Decker, with Decker taking an elbow to the torso that put Decker on the ground for a few moments.
Though Coach Decker was visibly upset with the way Junction City was playing, his team simply kept scoring, never once getting out of line with any fouls.
“We’ve got a set of girls with good heads on their shoulders,” Decker said, “so they know how to adapt and come back and not make a retaliation foul, but challenge every ball.”
White scored her second goal of the night on a right-to-left rocket from about 40 yards out that sailed into the upper left corner to make it 6-0 in the 63rd minute.
“I just kicked it, and I was like, ‘Wow, that just went in,’” White said.
Sosa then notched her second score after she received a pass from Decker and smashed it into the right corner in the 70th minute.
“I just tried to aim for a corner and got it there,” Sosa said. “I got a couple good shots off tonight.”
Jennifer Knickerbocker capped the scoring in the final minute when she knocked in a cross from Bailey Sosa.
Emporia is back in action at 6 tonight with a home rematch against Wichita East, a team EHS defeated, 1-0, last Monday in Wichita.
Emporia 8, Junction City 0
Thursday at TRYSA
JC 0 0 — 0
Emporia 4 4 — 4
First Half
Emp — Jordan Sosa (unassisted), 3rd minute
Emp — Brittany Meza (penalty kick), 34th minute
Emp — Meza (penalty kick), 37th minute
Emp — Kylie White (assist from Bailey Sosa), 39th minute
Second Half
Emp — Jessica Decker (assist from Meza), 50th minute
Emp — White (assist from Decker), 63rd
minute
Emp — J. Sosa (assist from Decker), 70th minute
Emp — Jennifer Knickerbocker (assist from B. Sosa), 79th minute
Game Statistics
Shots on goal — JC 0, Emporia 16. Saves — JC: Overstreet 8. Emporia: Nuessen 0. Corner kicks — JC 0, Emporia 11. Total fouls — JC: 10, Emporia: 12. Yellow cards — JC: Overstreet.