Purnell Swett’s Josie McLean (6) and Lumberton’s Chloe Hammonds (22) chase after the ball during Friday’s match in Lumberton. Chris Stiles | The Robesonian PEMBROKE — The Purnell Swett girls soccer team shook off a slow first-half start and put on a scoring clinic over the final 40 minutes to beat the Lumberton Pirates Friday in United-8 Conference action. With an 8-0 win, the Rams clinched a share of the conference championship with Cape Fear, a first for the Rams girls soccer program.
“Well, I think it’s well deserving for the girls, but its also well deserving of the girls from the previous class, we’ve been building and building to this and its finally come to fruition and I’m just happy for these group of girls to finally make it so,” Purnell Swett coach Alaric Strickland said.
“That is one of our goals for this year,” Rams forward Josie McLean said. “I feel like it’s been building up for the past few years, we really put the time in and put the work in coming together as a team. That was one of our big goals and it’s exciting to accomplish it.
After a back-and-forth defensive action from both sides the Rams (19-1, 13-1 United-8) managed to break the scoring drought in the 28th minute on a goal from Kyndallon Oxendine off an assist from McLean. The Pirates (7-8-4, 4-7-3 United-8) then held the Rams to that lone goal as we headed into halftime.
“The first half we did great,” Lumberton coach Ethan Freeman said. “We held them down to one goal. They had very few shot opportunities and I thought defensively in the first half we did great.”
The Rams started off the second half quickly making it 2-0 on a goal from Sarah Hunt off an assist from McLean. Five minutes later McLean joined the scoring party with a goal making it 3-0 Purnell Swett.
The Rams kept things rolling with a Jahna Locklear goal and a Rylie Hammonds goal to make it 6-0 with both goals coming off an assist from Hunt.
“My performance tonight, it wasn’t my best, but it wasn’t my worst and I feel like we had a really good game, but I feel like we can do much better than tonight,” Hunt said. “A good feeling for all of us and it’s a very good accomplishment for all of us on the team.”
“I think looking for to connect passes was our big thing,” McLean said. “I feel like once we started finding our feet more and picking our heads up, we were able to see where each other are at and create more opportunities to score.”
After the Rams made it 7-0 with less than 10 minutes remaining, Gracie Wilkerson finished off the scoring surge with a goal in the 75th minute as the Rams cruised to the win.
“Second half, we came out a little bit better offensively but made a few mistakes on defense and Purnell capitalized on that,” Freeman said. “But overall, I’m happy with the season our girls have had battling through a lot of games and improving from last year.”
“I thought we were a little sluggish in the first half,” Strickland said. “It took us a while to get going Lumberton played us hard and tough in the first half, but I think the girls finally got what we were trying to get them to do, and it is executing the game and they were able to do that in the second half.”
Both teams will now turn their focus to postseason action and prepare for the United-8 Conference tournament starting next week. The Rams will be the No. 2 seed after losing the coin flip for the top seed with Cape Fear, and will host No. 7 Seventy-First in the opening round on Monday. Lumberton, the No. 5 seed, plays at No. 4 Gray’s Creek.
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