WINNEMUCCA - When the Lowry High School varsity girls soccer team takes on Spring Creek the emotions seem to rise to another level for both schools.
While rivalries are hard to find these days, the northern Nevada schools separated by 140 miles have been involved in a number of battles and the latest matchup in Winnemucca on Thursday did not disappoint.
Spring Creek scored two first-half goals and had to hold off a late Lowry rally before winning 3-1. The matchup was a rough one with three Spartan players coming off the field for various injuries.
"The games tend to get physical but they are fair," said LHS head coach Chris Entwistle. "We have a budding rivalry with Spring Creek and both teams turn it up a notch when we play. We wanted to go in and challenge everything and I thought we did that. We wanted to push the tempo and we got to Spring Creek a bit at the end."
The Lady Spartans grabbed the early advantage with two goals in the first 15 minutes. Shawntel Andersen scored both goals from nearly the exact spot. The senior found the top corner of the net from about 25 yards out in the sixth minute. Nine minutes later, the senior connected on the same shot that was aided by a wind behind her back. Andersen is one of the top scorers in the Division I-A North.
"They were good shots, but we should not have let her take them," Entwistle said. "She stuck them in a spot that Lindsay (Pate) couldn't get them. It would have been hard for any goalie to have stopped them. Lindsay did a good job for just her second time in the net as a varsity goal keeper."
Spring Creek made the score 3-0 in the 58th minute off a shot by Linsey Bessert, who received a crossing pass from Andersen.
Trailing by three goals, Lowry quickly pressured Spring Creek and cut the deficit to 3-1 in the 60th minute on a shot by Monique Rodriguez with the assist going to Irdiana Gonzalez.
"I was proud of how we came right back," added the coach. "We could have easily bagged it from there. The girls went out and controlled the game from there."
The Lady Bucks (2-6 Division I-A North, 5-6-1 overall) had a number of opportunities to cut the deficit further. Lowry had a couple of shots just go wide of the net by Ashley McKinnon and Rodriguez and another ball bounce off the top cross bar off a corner kick.
"We had them frustrated and Spring Creek was making some mistakes," Entwistle said. "It is hard to come back when you are down 2-0 or 3-0. It's easy to get down on yourself. We fought back. We had some chances in the end."
Lowry was on the road Saturday in Elko in a rematch of last year's first-round regional playoff game that the Indians won 8-0. It was a different story this year as the Lady Bucks kept the match-up much closer but lost 2-0 to the Indians.
Lowry is back at home tonight against Fernley at 4 p.m. to start the second half of Division I-A North play. The Lady Bucks step out of league play with a 3 p.m. match at Battle Mountain on Thursday and continue the road trip to Dayton on Saturday with a 1 p.m. start with the Dust Devils.
"We are going to look at the second half of the season and see if we can pick up a couple of more wins," Entwistle said. "Except for the Truckee game, we have been in every game this year."[[In-content Ad]]
