The Elmore County girls soccer team remained undefeated after a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Holtville in the AHSAA Class 5A playoffs.
It was Holtville who struck first, and second, both coming from freshman Hailey Phelps to put the Bulldogs out a 2-0 lead. However, from that point on Elmore County found its stride — scoring three unanswered goals from Cadi Crews, Delaney Hines and the game-winner from Kristina Elmore with five minutes left in the game. Even so, this is not the first time the Panthers have had to mount a comeback victory according to head coach Leslie Hines.
“Luckily, we've actually come back several times this season,” Hines said. “We're 19 wins in and no losses, and we want to keep that going. Personally, I told them at half-time. I said, ‘Y'all, we're going to win this game. We are going to win this game.’ I felt it. We got that last-minute goal in there before the half. And I just felt the energy change, I felt their demeanor change.”
Although the Bulldogs saw their season come to a close, John Stark was proud of what his team accomplished. They won their first-ever playoff game against Marbury the week before and took one of the better teams in Class 5A to the wire.
“We said, win or lose, we just want to leave it all out on the field,” Stark said. “And I think we did that. I couldn't be more pleased with their effort, we're tired. It's been a long end of the season, but they came out, they were resilient the first half, and just got tired.”
What makes Elmore County’s season even more impressive is how young the team is. Most of the team is made up of underclassmen with only two seniors on the roster, with most having no previous soccer experience before this season.
“The only (senior) starter is our goalie, and the rest, we've got eighth-graders starting, ninth, 10th graders (and) a couple of girls on the line are 11th graders,” Hines said. “I had more girls on this field tonight that have never played soccer before in their lives, and we just started really early on with basics and working together and everyone doing their job and getting better as the game went on.”
Next up for Elmore County is Indian Springs, who is a talented soccer team from Pelham that posts an 11-3-3 record this year. Hines knows it’ll be a tough task, but is more focused on how they can improve before the match-up.
“Indian Springs is an excellent team,” Hines said. “I try not to look ahead, I look at the game ahead of me that night. But at this point, we're just going to go play the sport we love, and I'm going to coach the sport I love. I love these girls and this community of Eclectic, we’re just going to do the best we can. At this point, we have nothing to be sad about if we don't move on to state. But that is the absolute goal.”