Lady Eagles fall 3-0 to Tyler in District Championship

Tyler 3
MCC 0

(MERIDIAN) - The Meridian Community College Lady Eagles soccer team closed its 2009 season with a hard-fought 3-0 setback to 7th-ranked Tyler (TX) Junior College on a sunny, warm Saturday afternoon at the Northeast Recreational Complex in Meridian.

Both teams exchanged possession most of the first half while trying to gain sustained momentum.

Meridian had multiple chances to score, with an outstanding opportunity to get on the board at the 20:00 minute mark in the first half. A penalty was called on Tyler and the Lady Eagles had a free kick right in front of their opponents goal. Christina Murray, MCC’s leading scorer, took the kick but the ball was deflected by Tyler’s goalie which led to multiple shots on goal by MCC but the Lady Eagles were unable to get the ball in the goal and the score remained 0-0 late into the first half.

As the clock wound down under a minute to play before halftime, Tyler netted the first goal of the game with just :23 left in the opening half and took the lead 1-0 but just as important the visiting team took the momentum into halftime.

“We had them on their heels the entire first half,” said MCC head coach Alex George.

“I felt like we had a lot of opportunities to score, seven or eight shots on goal but just couldn’t get one across.”

Down 1-0 to start the second half, MCC was under pressure to score first and get back even in the contest, but any hopes of a comeback was squashed early in the second half as Tyler scored within the first ten minutes of intermission to take a 2-0 lead.

"We made some adjustments for the second half but they were able to get a couple of shots behind us,” said George.

The game was officially put away by Tyler midway in the second half as they scored another goal and took the lead for good, 3-0.

“I don’t think that the 3-0 final score necessarily depicts the entire game because we fought hard the entire game but just came up short,” added George.

“We’ve just got to build off of this for next year, I mean 15:00 minutes into the game we were very confident we were going to win this game but when they scored with :23 seconds left before half we were pressing the entire second half to regain the lead instead of taking it one goal at a time.”

This was the second consecutive NJCAA District Championship appearance for the Lady Eagles after claiming back-to-back NJCAA Region 23 titles. All in all, the Lady Eagles have captured three straight championships, winning their first post season title in 2007 with the MACJC State Championship then back-to-back NJCA Region 23 titles in 2008 and 2009.