Five Different Lady Wildcats Score As Livingston Soccer Wins at Stone Memorial, 6-1

By Michael Lindsay

 

The Livingston Academy Lady Wildcats improved to 9-2-2 overall and 5-0 in District 7-2A Tuesday night as they defeated the Stone Memorial Lady Panthers in Crossville, 6-1.

“We didn’t play well in the first half at all,” said Livingston head coach Heather Marshall. “We definitely played into their strengths, but the last two minutes we adjusted well and capitalized on opportunities in the second half.”

After a scoreless 38 minutes to open the contest, Livingston found the back of the net twice in the final two minutes of the first half as Kylie Swisher and Taryn Childers connected on shots to give the Lady Wildcats a 2-0 lead at the break.

“Our girls just needed a fire lit under them,” said Marshall. “We were playing a little lackadaisical and not passing to feet. We knew this would be the toughest district matchup and it may have been in our heads.”

Bella Burkett and Mallori Lindsay scored a pair of goals midway through the second half to extend Livingston’s lead to 4-0 with 22:43 remaining. Childers followed up with a goal at the 16:36 mark to push the Lady Wildcats’ lead to 5-0 before Tara Hinds scored a goal off a deflection to give LA a 6-0 advantage.

“Our topic at halftime was we can’t let them come back in the game,” said Marshall. “Keeping the petal to the metal was important.”

Stone Memorial’s Shelby Vitous scored the contest’s final goal with 35 seconds remaining to make the final score 6-1 in favor of Livingston.

Up next for the Lady Wildcats is senior night on Thursday at home against White County while Stone Memorial is set to travel to Blackman on Thursday.

“We’re going to recover from this and start focusing on our Thursday game,” said Marshall. “Then we have a week of rest before going into the playoffs. It’s crunch time now; we’re getting players back healthy at the right time and I’m looking forward to the postseason.”