Lady Seahawks win school's first district soccer crown

In a thrilling finish Friday night at Mikel Clark Stadium in Eastpoint, the Lady Seahawks varsity soccer team edged the Rocky Bayou Christian Lady Knights 3-1 on penalty kicks to win the school’s first-ever district championship.

After two 40-minute halves of scoreless play, the two teamsplayed two 10-minute sudden death periods and again neither team scored. During the regular season, the two teams played two scoreless draws, so that Friday’s stalemate marked 260 minutes of scoreless soccer played by the two squads.

Freshman Macey Hunt was tested all game, and managed to prevent every scoring opportunity during regular play, and in the two sudden death periods. Senior Megan Newell had led the team with shots on goal all evening, but could not manage to find the back of the net.

The Lady Knights won the toss, and elected to go first. Each team was given up to five opportunities to score with a penalty kick.

Newell banged her kick home, but so did the next Lady Knight player. Freshman Katie Seger scored as well, as did sophomore Jessica Shields. Hunt stopped three of the four Lady Knight penalty kicks to secure the win.

Lady Seahawks Coach Kelli Maggio was all smiles, even after her squad poured a giant bucket of ice water over her. Her team, winner of the Class 1A District 1 title, will host a Tuesday evening regional quarterfinal game against Hamilton County, runner-up in District 2.

Hamilton County lost 5-1 Friday night to Maclay (15-4-2), which now hosts Rocky Bayou

The Seahawk victory snapped a string of eight district titles for Lady Knight head coach Brian Alldredge.

“The girl who missed the last penalty kick came back afterwards and said ‘That’s what God wanted. God has a lot of plans and apparently His plan was their good skill, their play needed to be rewarded more than ours did,” said Alldredge. “Franklin County did a great job.”