By Todd Fertig
TopSports.news
The Shawnee Heights girls soccer team hung with one of the state’s top Class 5A teams for more than a half Monday, but in the end, the T-Birds fell to St. James Academy 4-0 at the Bettis Family Sports Complex.
Abby Fleischer and a veteran Shawnee Heights soccer team will be looking to build off a tough schedule to mount a late-season charge this spring. [File photo/TSN]
Shawnee Heights permitted just one goal for the first 45 minutes of the contest, hanging with the 9-2 Thunder. But the T-Birds struggled to get anything going at the offensive end. In fact, they failed to record a shot on goal throughout the contest, while the visiting Thunder hammered away with 10 shots on the Shawnee Heights goal.
Early in the second half, St. James added an insurance goal. Then midway through the second half, the visitors tacked on two quick strikes to create the final margin.
“Obviously, St. James is a really good team and they’re going to be one of the best teams in 5A,” said Shawnee Heights coach Kellen Griffin. “But eventually you’re going to have to go through one of them in the postseason. You might as well get used to playing them in the regular season, too.”
Shawnee Heights dropped to 4-6 on the season. The loss to St. James comes in a rugged stretch for the T-Birds, who travel to Chanute on Tuesday, then host Topeka West Thursday.
“We’ve actually got three games in a row without practice because we played Friday night, and that was a tough 1-0 loss to De Soto,” Griffin said. “It’s just a matter of keeping (the players) bought in even though we’ve had a tough run of games.”
With more than half of the varsity roster made up of seniors, Griffin believes his team can still make a run.
“We’re starting to turn a corner,'' he said. "It might not look like it in some of these games, but we’re starting to build upon the team that I know we can actually be.
“We’ve got three more weeks before the post season, and then it’s always about the draw that you wind up getting. I think we can definitely play with all the teams we’ve got in 5A. It’s just a matter of putting a whole game together.”
ST. JAMES ACADEMY 4, SHAWNEE HEIGHTS 0
St James Academy (9-2) 1 3 — 4
Shawnee Heights (4-6) 0 0 — 0
St James Academy — Goals: Jesperson 2, Steinlage, Wilken. Assists: Wilken 2. Shutout: Tauscher and Smith.
