Lady Knights held in suspense
Published 10:22 pm Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The Suffolk Christian Academy girls’ soccer team played Oaktree Academy in the semifinal on Tuesday after it advanced through the first round of the Seven Cities Conference tournament on Monday. The Lady Knights were in a 1-1 tie and carrying the momentum when the remainder of the game was postponed due to rain.
Oaktree took the early 1-0 lead, but Suffolk Christian’s Elizabeth Arnold launched a corner kick that Victoria Twisdale put in to knot things up.
“The girls finally got their momentum when they scored that one (tying) goal,” SCA head coach Stacy Pauley said. “And then they were really pushing. I really feel like we would have won that game if they would have let us finish playing it.”
The semifinal will conclude Thursday at 3 p.m. at the Suffolk Youth Athletic Association fields. It will last for 10 minutes, and if the score remains tied, two five-minute overtimes will follow and then a shootout of penalty kicks, if necessary.
“I know that we can beat Oaktree again,” Pauley said.
While Suffolk Christian defeated the school once this season, it has also lost once, but Pauley noted that the Lady Knights were missing primary goalkeeper Julia Jackson for that game.
The winner of the semifinal will face Summit Christian Academy in the tournament championship, which is still scheduled for Thursday at 4:30 p.m. at the SYAA fields.
Summit led 1-0 against Gateway Christian School in the other semifinal when the weather interfered. Both parties agreed to call it a game.
Should the Lady Knights advance, they will face an opponent that has defeated them twice this year, but the first time, when Jackson was in goal, it was only by a narrow margin, 2-1. Jackson will be on hand today for the semifinal and the potential final.
In the first round of the tourney on Monday, Suffolk Christian defeated the Virginia Beach Friends School for the third time this season, 3-0 in this instance. Twisdale scored twice and Caitlyn Benton once.