Lady Falcons advance to regional finals
The North Carolina Leadership Academy varsity girls’ soccer team scored one early goal, pushed the lead to 2-0 by halftime and held on for a 2-0 win over visiting Jefferson Classical Academy on Monday night in the Class 1-A West regional semifinals. The NCLA is the No. 2 seed in the regional and Jefferson Classical was the No.
3 seed. Lady Falcons Head Coach Paul Boone called Jefferson Classical a great team. “They had a couple of very dangerous players up front.
It was the most physical game we have played this season, which is what you expect when you get this deep into the playoffs. We played physical and ran hard, and I think that made the difference. They got behind our defense a couple of times.
Our keeper, Haley Forsyth had to make two phenomenal point-blank saves. They had one girl that was really fast. We did a good job on her, but she was going to get some chances.
When she needed to, Haley came off her line and shut down those chances,” Boone said. About eight minutes into the game, NCLA’s Anna Suriano got some space on the right side of the field, dribbled to goal and sent a hard shot from a tough angle about 20 yards away past the goalie for what turned out to be the game-winning goal. Near the end of the half, Lady Falcons midfielder Hannah Hall had the ball in the center of the field and cranked a shot into the upper corner of the goal from about 25 yards out to give The NCLA some breathing room.