On Aug. 22, the WCMS Lady Pioneer soccer team traveled to Franklin County to play North Middle School. 
The Lady Pioneers were playing their first conference game of the season and were defeated by the Lady Gators, 2-1, despite outshooting the home team by a wide margin.
Lady Pioneer head coach Matt Walker gave his insight on the game and how the team played overall.
“We outshot them 16-3 and probably controlled the ball 90 percent of the game, but when you are unable to score goals, you leave yourself open to these kind of outcomes. I take nothing away from North. They played well enough to win and made key plays when they needed.”
On how the Lady Gators stopped the Lady Pioneers attack Walker added, “They kept six girls back on defense the entire game to clog up the middle and with us unable to make a long shot, we just could not get the space to get clean shots off inside the box.”
According to Walker, the pregame message for the Lady Pioneers was simple, “Don’t take this team for granted as they are better than in previous years. Look to score early to prevent them from getting any momentum.” 
To start the game, the Lady Pioneers let the Lady Gators get on the board early when they got a ball past the Lady Pioneer goalie near post to give them the lead, 1-0.
The rest of the half was controlled by the Lady Pioneers, despite trailing by the same margin as the half ended, the Lady Pioneers outshot the Lady Gators 7-2 and still had plenty of momentum heading into the second half.
The second half started and the Lady Pioneers continued to dominate and kept the pressure on North’s half of the field.
A mistake by the Lady Pioneers that caused turnover at midfield led to the Lady Gators only shot of the second half which found the back of the net to extend their lead, 2-0.
With 10 minutes left in the game, the sense of urgency picked up and the Lady Pioneers again dominated possession and finally broke through when Katie Toney found Macie Powers for the Lady Pioneers first goal, cutting into the Lady Gators lead, 2-1.
The Lady Gators were able to cross midfield only a couple more times and were unable to attempt a shot, while the Lady Pioneers kept firing away at the Lady Gators' net but were unable score.
The final whistle blew and the Lady Gators prevailed, 2-1, sending the Lady Pioneers home with a 0-1 conference record.
Walker had this to say after the Lady Pioneers suffered their first district loss, “It is not the way we wanted to start the season but all we can do is take care of business the rest of the way.”
The Lady Pioneers were back in action Tuesday night as they traveled to Tullahoma to take on the Lady Wildcats. Results weren’t available at press time.