By Michael Lindsay
The Stone Memorial Lady Panthers cruised to a 9-0 non-district victory over Jackson County Tuesday evening to improve to 5-3 overall.
“I think this is one of our better games playing as a team,” said Stone Memorial head coach Madison Buffkin. “We adjusted how we went into practice the day before to change our mentality coming into games and I think that made a big difference.”
Senior Emma Thompson led the Lady Panthers with three goals in the opening 4 minutes and 38 seconds.
“That was awesome,” said Buffkin. “We’ve been such a second-half team and we’ve been waiting for them to be a first-half team.”
Brittani Harbin and Jayne Warlick followed with a pair of goals to extend Stone Memorial’s lead to 5-0 with 13:09 remaining in the first half. Aubrey Murray and Alyssa Bracero tacked on two more to give the Lady Panthers a 7-0 halftime lead.
“We had a lot of girls that played well tonight,” said Buffkin. “They worked well together and got a lot of shots off.”
Warlick and Melodie Borngrebe connected on shots in the second half to secure Stone Memorial’s 9-0 mercy-rule victory with 23:54 remaining.
Stone Memorial returns to District 7-2A play on Thursday as they travel 4.1 miles through Crossville to face Cumberland County.
“The girls are excited to go over there and play a good game of soccer,” said Buffkin. “We played them in the preseason and it was a close game. We’re looking forward to going over there and learning some new things about us.”
