Both McClain and Hillsboro boys and girls soccer teams met up at Hillsboro High School on Tuesday night. In the first game the McClain boys got past the Hillsboro boys with a final of 5-2 and in the second game, this time Hillsboro was victorious as they Lady Indians got past the Lady Tigers 8-3.
In the boys matchup, the McClain Tigers started slow in the first half but shots started to fall in the second and they went on to win 5-2.
“It was a close game tonight,” said McClain Head Coach Jon Chamblin after the win. “These two teams are evenly matched and we’re both a little down this year. I knew coming in here that it was going to be a good game. The Greenfield-Hillsboro game is always a good one. We played pretty even the first half but we were able to keep the ball on our end the most. We had several shots on goal and just couldn’t get anything to fall. We came out in the second half with the plan to keep getting shots on goal with the hope something was going to fall eventually. Once they started falling, we opened up the flood gates and started really scoring. I think the kids played well and the defense was lights out. Our offense passed the ball well and that’s the reason we were able to score. Just good overall teamwork tonight.”
In the girls’ game, Scoring for the Lady Indians was spread out across five different players. Cadence Meyers, Lillian VanZant and Madison Marsh all netted one goal each. Hope Tira was able to find the net twice in the game and Callon Meyers had a hat-trick in the game, finding the back of the goal three times.
For the Lady Tigers, Taylor Polley had all three goals for her team, all coming in the second half of play.
“We were stronger in the first half tonight, but ended up playing them even in the second,” said Lady Indians Head Coach Jeremy Ratcliff after the game. “It’s the first night out of fair week, so probably not our best performance tonight. We did what we had to do to get a league win, and that’s always important. We have to get back to work tomorrow and work on getting better. I thought before fair break, we were playing at a really high level and we just didn’t get there tonight. Part of that is due to Greenfield. They put a lot of pressure on us. The Polley girl is a great player who just scored 10 goals in a recent game. We let her get lose a couple times tonight and she put it in the back of the net. They did they’re job to come out and make it difficult tonight. Like I told the girls, we did what we had to do to get a league win but we have a stretch here where we have five league games and they’re all tough opponents. We don’t have a whole lot of time to get back into that playing shape we were in two weeks ago, but we need to find it pretty quick.”
