Securing an opening-round home match in the upcoming district tournament, the Warren County High School Lady Pioneer soccer team shut out Cumberland County’s Lady Jets 5-0 at home Thursday night.
Thursday’s win was also sweeter since it will be Cumberland County the Lady Pioneers will face first in the tournament.
“We had excellent effort and focus from the entire team,” said Warren County coach Todd Willmore. “It was nice to be able to play the entire bench last night, which gave a lot of our underclassmen some nice experience.”
The match opened with a one-two combination between Lady Pioneer Sally Willmore and Abby Roller. This led to Willmore feeding the ball to striker Natalie Reed who drew first blood with a score.
It kept getting better from there as the next three scores were the direct result of well-paced corner kicks. Warren County’s MaKeena Mason was able to play one kick into the back of the net, followed by Natalie Reed finding Sam Ramsey in the middle of the box for another score.
Reed scored again when a corner kick crossed the goal and she beat the keeper for the game’s fourth score -- all in the first half.
Second-half action had the Lady Pioneers still playing hard and aggressive defense which gave Emory Anish an unassisted shot on goal which was good, 5-0.
Reed also had 1 assist and Willmore 2 assists.
The Lady Pioneers final regular season match of the season is this Tuesday against Franklin County. JV competition begins at 5 p.m., followed by varsity at 7 p.m. It will be senior recognition night, of which Warren County has seven.